Bharti Kher’s ‘Lady with an Ermine’

First exhibited by Nature Morte and Gallery SKE at the India Art Fair in New Delhi in January 2012, Bharti Kher’s latest work was also recently showcased at the former’s Gurgaon premises.

It continues her exploration of female archetypes which was initiated with the sculpture “Arione” of 2004. Enigmatic and inherently contradictory, as a press release elaborated, the installation holds multiple references intimately within herself.

She is both domesticated and feral, sexual and neutered, realistic and fantastical. The title alludes to Leonardo da Vinci’s masterpiece of 1489, depicting Cecilia Gallerani and which art historians believe to be the first modern portrait ever painted. With this gesture, the artist traces a long arc of representations of women throughout history, accommodating beauty, strength and individualism.

In her vulnerability, her ‘Lady’ arms herself with accoutrements which send conflicting signals, perhaps acknowledging contemporary dilemmas and oscillating paradigms. The work has been acquired for the permanent collection of the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art in New Delhi, joining Bharti Kher’s iconic sculpture of an elephant in repose, ‘The Skin Speaks a Language Not its Own’ of 2007.

Bharti Kher’s creations tend to carry redemptive power in every new environs. They move from the morphed body to surfaces that are encoded with curious patterns of immigration, exile, and the crossing of existing boundaries. It’s apparent that her work locates itself at the crossroads of ecological and technological dystopias.

She is renowned for her usage of the ready-made bindi as a motif. The tiny red decorative dot with ritualistic significance serves as a means of transforming surfaces and objects. It brings to her practice a wide range of connotations and meanings in context of both historical and contemporary time frames.

The bindi transcends its peculiar mass-produced diminutiveness to become a powerful symbolic and stylistic device, creating visual richness, leading to a multiplicity of meanings in her work. The artist is also known for her majestic menagerie of resin-cast animals, covered with it.