Stitched together with a thread, there are two surfaces to Mona's paintings one dark and the other clear. A homage to the French artist Artaud coal burns and bullet holes in the paintings depict pain and suffering. "After reading about his life and times I wanted to express the torture and violence he went through in a very potent way. And the only way an artist can express her emotions is through painting," says Mona. While generally her paintings are full of colours, she deviatesthis time to use mud, burnt charcoal and charcoal dust. She has also used flecks of gold powder, silver and golden paper and sometimes even candle fumes to assert an emotion.

Black and brooding is how one can describe Sejal's paintings. Experimenting with agricultural pulps, the surface of a paper holds lot of importance to Sejal. Working on cartridge paper, she believes the texture speaks for itself, conveying a meaning "in the right ratio and percentage". While working with pulp, Sejal realised that paper can acquire colour and texture of its own. So she decided to let this natural tendency of paper, rather than colour and layer it, to speak out. Though it is a long and tedious process, taking over three to six months when working without a pulp machine. "Earlier I was using paper, or rather wasting it. But now I know its true value," says Sejal.

Though the high point of the show is that S H Raza has bought two of Sejal's paintings, what Arun Sachdev, director, Gallery 7, finds interesting is theresponse of the people. For people have often confused Mona's works as Sejal's and vice-a-versa. "There's a sense of comparison, a competitive edge to it. Work of two people with a gap of more than 25 years and who have never met each other, but still look at art the same way," says Sachdev.