Regarding her position as a staunch feminist, Rekha Rodwittiya quips she has instinctively been one, reasoning she has invariably identified with those who are marginal or marginalized.
Encapsulating her art practice, she mentions: “There are certain things within the history and the currency of life that get absorbed into an artist’s vocabulary. My work displays a consistent involvement with the human figure as a leitmotif to embody man’s predicament. I’ve also made a conscious choice to engage with the delineation of the female figure over time.”
Sakshi Gallery arranged an exhibit of her paintings in 2008 to celebrate the five decades. Aptly entitled ‘rekha@fifty’, the show was an assertion of the artist’s commitment to what she has consciously structured as the grid, encapsulating the essence of her life and existence. Her works were presented as a gift of celebration to her audience, with the underlying message of living life with passion. The mixed acrylic & oil works attempted to set right the seesawing tilt of male/female inequality.
The artist has once stated: “You cannot remain on the periphery of an issue you identify with.” However, there is a tender side to her personality as well. Trying to retell stories we carry with us, she brought to the fore in her 2006 series an amalgamation of truths and desires, memories and histories - the residues of experience that define our existence.
Her body of work, ‘Once upon a time…’ alluded to both collective and personal territories she inhabits, the yin and yang of he existence, as she put it. However, these paintings were not sheer illustrative stories about her personal life. In keeping with her broader concerns, they explored the life cycle – a sort of homage to the ancestry of womanhood, transforming the presence of her persona into its emblematic representation.
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