Thursday, November 8, 2012

A subtle portrayal of the fragile female body and mind

Female form retains an uncompromising centrality in Sonia Mehra Chawla’s work. The woman remains at the centre of growth and decay, love and life cycles. The body registers all emotions directly, and carries the marks. Through her subtle portrayal, she brings out how the fragile female body is ephemeral and vulnerable – akin to a site of memory, history, and transformation, even as it continues with its mundane chores, yet registering all shades of emotions, and carrying the marks.

She suggests how ephemeral and vulnerable it is – akin to a site of memory, history, and transformation even while continuing with its mundane chores, yet registering all shades of emotions. The artist deals with a mélange of ideas that make us ponder over fragility, emergence, decadence, dissolution and transience. The forms contain the vitality and essence of the living as well as the vulnerability of inevitable decay.

The talented and versatile artist employs a wide array of mediums to focus on the purging of biodiversity, biomorphic patterning, often relating the urban with the organic in complex layering. She has developed a style uniquely her own combining print making techniques, photographic references and painting using acrylic paints, oils and inks.

Born in 1977 in Kolkata, Sonia Mehra Chawla completed her BFA and MFA in Painting (with a gold medal) from College of Art, New Delhi in 2001 and 2004 respectively. She has worked extensively in etching and lithography - first under eminent Indian printmaker Anupam Sud and then at Atelier 2221, Print and Edition studio.

Among her noteworthy exhibitions are ‘Urban Biomorphic’, Visual Arts Gallery, India Habitat Centre, Delhi; ‘The Second Sex: India’, Woman artist exhibition, 10 Chancery Lane Gallery, Hong kong; ‘The Way We Are’, Viart Gallery, Delhi; SH Contemporary 08’, Shanghai; ‘Emerging Directions’ by Apparao Galleries, Gorbio, France; ‘Beyond Boundaries’, The Gallery In Cork Street, Mayfair, London; ‘Live Wire’, Visual Arts Centre, Hong Kong; ‘World One Minutes’, Today Art Museum, Beijing; ‘Art Dubai’ (all in 2008); ‘Identity and Masquerade’, The Photographers Gallery, London (2006-07);‘India-Asia: Changing Paradigms’, Cologne, Germany (2005); ‘Path/ Progression/ Digressions’, Air Gallery, London (2005);‘Moving Image’ courtesy Royal Netherlands Embassy (2004); and ‘Carry on Drawing’, Serpentine Gallery, London (2004).

No comments:

Post a Comment