Artists with different creative modes courtesy Chemould

A look at the artists who feature at IAF’13 courtesy Gallery Chemould, Mumbai:

Cloth for creative expression

Lavanya Mani completed her MFA in creative painting, from The Faculty of Fine Arts, MSU Baroda in 2001. During that time she began incorporating a number of elements and aspects of textile dyeing, printing and embroidery in her work. As she continued working with cloth, she found herself being drawn toward traditional dyeing and printing processes in India (especially kalamkari) maybe because of its similarity to painting.

Using a 'traditional'/ 'craft' medium (like kalamkari) as a contemporary art practice necessitated an awareness of its location and context within the larger historical and cultural dynamic. To that effect she has been trying to explore the multi-layered role which dyed and printed textiles have played in the history of colonial trade, the establishment of colonialism and the economics of political dominion and imperialism in India.

Inspired by a wide array of sources and concerns

While Anju Dodiya’s exploration of the human self through the experience of her own interiority forms a focalizing point for her work, Dodiya has taken inspiration over the years from a variety of sources, historical and contemporary, esoteric and popular, aesthetic, cinematic, and textual.

The medium of watercolor is vital to the careful calibration of emotion in her recent works presented as part of ‘Room for Erasures’. She indicates the language of her performance. The erasures reappear within the suite of photographic works, where the images are disfigured with stains that appear on paper and skin, playing with memory and its loss. The fabric mounts which present geometric shapes form a third point of perspective, thus creating "a circuit where...marks, stains and erasures" are resolved into an abstract design, imposing a palliative distance from the suffering self.

An artist who exudes involved collaborative spirit

Archana Hande's artwork and creative practice has always extended into diverse modes, venues, concerns and forms. She has with ease slipped into the intersecting roles of activist, facilitator, interventionist, and maker all wrapped into one. Her interests have led her to draw upon a variety of resources, her projects having often taken-on an involved collaborative spirit.