‘Metamorphosing Female: Roots Emerge Upwards’

The highly evocative and subtly portrayed figures form part of a solo show by Sonia Mehra Chawla that takes place at the Palette Art Gallery, New Delhi. It’s a sequel to her solo at Galerie Beck and Eggeling in Germany, last year. The current suite of works comprises canvases, video projections and digital prints.

“The graphic patterns on the canvas are apparently inspired by and drawn from 18th and 19th century microphotogrpahs, and diagrammatic representations of single-celled organisms, which occur in the ocean. A press release elaborates: “These cross-sections appear highly complex and ornamental for such base creatures. The artist has selected fragments from this realm to reveal evolutionary mechanics, representing the upward growth of species wherein single celled creatures are the bottom-most whereas human beings right at the top”.

Peeping into the artist’s philosophy and processes, art critic Deeksha Nath mentions: “The process of compounded growth is central to Sonia’s work as she delves for inspiration into the extremely personal and transformative experience of becoming a mother. The group of works, which shares the title ‘Some Roots Grow Upwards’, urges the audience to believe that while the woman in peacefully tending to her plants she is being ‘fertile’ in both senses of the word and as she nurtures and nourishes the plant so also she does the child to be.

“If we are to consider ‘roots’ and thus the deleuzian structure of interconnectedness as being organic and ‘un-grid-like’ with a central point from which spring almost uncharted paths then in Sonia’s work this would be the woman-mother-nuturer. This is articulated as such in the video installation Becoming Light. A multiplicity of women at various stages in their life has selected verses from Nandita Jaishankar’s poetry to reflect and thereby transmit their essential thoughts and experiences.”

In essence, Sonia Mehra Chawla comes across as a sensitive artist who through her subtle portrayal brings out how the fragile female body is ephemeral and vulnerable – akin to a site of memory, history, and transformation, even as it continues with its mundane chores, yet registering all shades of emotions, and carrying the marks.