Mumbai artist, lawyer found dead: ‘A bold artist who stood out among veterans’

Watch Video: Hema Upadhyay Murder Case – All You Need To Know

Hema’s friend and fellow artist Reena Saini Kallat said she had spent all of Sunday morning with the police, hoping to get information on what had happened. “I’ve been in shock since yesterday. I couldn’t sleep all of last night, after hearing the disturbing news,” she said, adding that Hema had been missing since Friday night. Her husband, Jitish Kallat — who had curated the 2014-15 Kochi-Muziris Biennale — recalled his interactions with Hema. “It’s a chilling end to a life spent in artistic pursuit,” he added.

While her last solo “Fish in a Dead Landscape” was held at Gallery Chemould, Mumbai, in 2014, Hema was reportedly seen at Art Night Thursday in Colaba in Mumbai on December 10. “She seemed happy,” said Peter Nagy, director of Nature Morte gallery, who represented the artist. He noted how her wide repertoire ranged from paintings to photo collages and how she engaged with her surroundings through her work.

A postgraduate in art from MS University, Vadodara, Hema began her career as a painter and used photography and sculptural installations to project numerous concerns, from personal identity to gender issues and migration.

Her first solo exhibition Sweet Sweat Memories (2001), at Gallery Chemould, for instance, depicted her own resettlement in Mumbai, from Vadodara, where she was born and brought up. Some of her most acclaimed works include The Nymph and the Adult (2001), where she hand-crafted 2,000 cockroaches, and The Space in Between You and Me, where the artist used freshly-tilled ground to plant seeds that, when sprouted, spelled a letter to her mother. In 2003, she collaborated with her husband Chintan for Made in China, reflecting on the import of rather ordinary Chinese products.

Artist Gulammohammed Sheikh, who has been following her work since her student days in Vadodara and has exhibited with her in group shows, said, “She was very bold and experimental. I liked the way she made use of digital technology in her photo works.”

He added that in their exhibition Constructs/Constructions, at Delhi’s Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, from April-November 2015, Hema’s work stood out among veterans. In the exhibition was Hema’s 8’ x 12’, a celebrated work where the artist recreated an aerial view of the Dharavi slum from materials that usually comprise the buildings — aluminum sheets, car scrap, enamel paint, plastic sheets and found objects.

“Hema’s presence — whether she dropped in at the gallery or if we met at an event — was always a happy one. She was real, warm and cheerful. Relationships were important to her,” said Ranjana Steinruecke of Galerie Mirchandani + Steinrueck. Perhaps that’s how Hema would have liked to be remembered.

(Inputs by Pooja Pillai)