‘Feminine Syntax: Personal Biographies’

‘Feminine Syntax: Personal Biographies’ is the title of a show at Lemongrasshopper, Ahmedabad. The exhibition features works of 6 young women artists. Curated by Rekha Rodwittiya, a noteworthy artist herself, it is comprised of works by Karishma D'souza, Kim Seola, Lee Hayan , Kim Kyoungae, Malavika Rajnarayan and Sonatina Mendes. The first three are from South Korea. Karishma D’souza and Sonatina Mendes are from Goa; and Malavika Rajnarayan is from Bangalore; all now currently reside in Baroda.

‘Feminine Syntax : Personal Biographies’, as an accompanying essay mentions, is an intimate space of reflection and consideration that desires to hold dear the personal and the fragile, within an art environment that has increasingly begun to impose the demands for grand and epic proclamations. Like the weaving of a tapestry, the many different threads that knot and come together are what finally make for a complete picture; and as lives interweave too, these spaces of communion hold exquisite value.

A staunch feminist, Rekha Rodwittiya believes that in spite of the gender inequality, a multitude of voices still express the desire to dispel the stereotype of gender bias, and look to accommodate the complex changes we know to be real. The participating artists are acutely conscious of the collective histories that that they choose to belong to and which may be viewed as the legacies of feminist discourse.

Nuanced and evocative, their works imbibe oral histories of a multicultural social milieu which become the stage of greater elaboration and interventions. Shared associations, conflicts, parallel histories and cultural investigations - all wrapped in the pursuit of a visual language, have distilled to articulate passages of contemporary existence for these six women.

Feminine sensibility in art is often from those territories that engage with the politics of gender and which chart a history crucial to contextualizing self representations, as the curator concludes. The show is a perfect event, to coincide with this year's International Women’s Day celebrations…

(Information courtesy: Lemongrasshopper)