A look at Shakuntala Kulkarni's art philosophy and processes

At a broader level, Shakuntala Kulkarni's work has evolved into a meticulous enquiry into the urban woman's life and heir space within the society that is essentially patriarchal. At different key stages of her practice, the artist began addressing issues such as pain, claustrophobia,  fear, anxiety, and alienation experienced by women within these constrained spaces owing to the discrimination and violence that they invariably experienced, also looking into the possibility to deal with the same.

Shifting artistic the concerns

Since the nineties, the concerns in Shakuntala Kulkarni's work shifted from her earlier concerns of human predicament, to gender specific issues. Her work since then has been an enquiry into the lives of urban women and their space within the society which is essentially patriarchal. At different stages of her art practice, Kulkarni started addressing certain pertinent issues. The need to rearrange and stretch the visual language to address such concerns, compelled her to shift her works from two dimensional space of painting and printmaking to three dimensional sculptural space. 

Stretching the visual language

The need to rearrange and stretch the visual language to address these concerns and go into a deeper enquiry, compelled her to shift her works from two dimensional space of painting and printmaking to three dimensional sculptural space. At this stage, the artist's earlier experience of her involvement with the intimate theater of the seventies, allowed her the freedom for experimentation with time, form and space. She was able to blur the barriers of different languages by using different disciplines. This led to working with moving images.

Body language as the site of contestation

She started using body language as the site of contestation for addressing her concerns through performance videos. ‘Beyond Proscenium’ in 1994 was her first move towards the experimentation with interdisciplinary work which prompted interaction with dancers, musicians, poets, play writes actors and directors.

(Information courtesy: Chemould Prescott Road)