Alternative Perspectives at Kolkata-based CIMA art gallery depicts a world where nature, memory and imagination play the role of a man. Within this exhibition, one enters a whispering world; a mysterious, sometimes strange universe often experienced, it would seem, singularly.
A curatorial note emphasizes: “It would be a cliché if we were presented with the world of women; instead we wander into the imaginings of women, written “by eye” rather than “by ear.” Expressions of inner feelings; moods, whimsical thoughts, preoccupies and dominates in this show. The sources are clear – Literature, particularly fables, folk art traditions and eastern philosophy.
The artists, are not interested in portraying recognizable individual characteristics – meaning does not depend on “likeness;” memories and imagination are stirred by the visual media, much as it may happen to us, when we read a verbal description.
Anju Chaudhuri abstract landscapes are actually patterns and colors that are in continual balletic flux.” Nature on the artist’s canvas is not trapped into stable, descipherable forms of trees and hills. Form is freed from itself; it floats adrift.
A self-taught artist Shakila has evolved into one of India’s most original artists. As a young child, her passion for art was nurtured by a professor in statistics who was also a member of the Society of Contemporary Artists. From simple pastoral themes, her work has progressively become more complex and depicting socio-political concerns."
The woman is pivotal in Rini Dhumal’s artwork; her titles would suggest divinity but in fact, the faces have been retrieved from her memory. They are women (dependent widows) from the artist’s grandfather’s zamindari in what is now Bangladesh. The drawings reflect Dhumal’s Santiniketan leanings. The works in this exhibition – color etchings, lithographs, mixed media paintings and ceramics, attest to her versatility.
Rashmi Bagchi Sarkar’s works express an anxiety – an environmental and ecological anxiety. The single child of a single mother, nature was her refuge and retreat. She paints following the Japanese iwa-enogu method, a medium which is derived from nature – created by a process of crushing semi-precious stones and shells, mineral ores and animal glue and mixing these to form the pigment. Her current series suggests a sense of foreboding and a palpable sense of dread.
Last but not the least, Jayasri Burman stubbornly refuses to be lost and be anonymous in the mass of contemporary artists who explore new media because it’s ‘smarter’; instead she has invented an idiom which has been developed by her Kala Bhavan teachers, Binode Behari and Ramkinkar Baij!
(Image courtesy: CIMA, Kolkata)
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