The Persistence of Memory

Titled Intangible Interlocution: An Anthology of Belonging,this exhibition is divided into three segments. The first,An Anatomy of Recollection,is a collection of digital inkjet prints of autobiographic photo-images and hand-painted water colour on paper,under which the image of the woman lying on her side falls. Moving away from that style,the second section has a number of watercolours,popular stickers and personal memorabilia on watercolour paper,titled Letters of the Universe: When the sun and the moon fall asleep,only then can I dance so naked,and the third has a bunch of acrylics and oils on canvases,titled Diagrams of an Interior Space.

The digital prints comprise an obviously autobiographical series,but the Baroda-based artist points out that all her works are autobiographical,even if not in the actual sense of the word. “All my work is autobiographical,but autobiographical from the point of view of being a woman,” she says. “It reflects the paradox of being a woman.”

At the age of 18,Rodwittiya began practising photography as well,an activity she continued until she went to London to study in the early ’80s. After that,however,painting became her priority and her work increasingly reflected her feminist preoccupations,while continuing to explore issues ranging from the sociopolitical to the universal and the personal. The celebration of womanhood is an enduring motif in her work. It is this aspect of her work,with the woman becoming the narrator,that makes her creations autobiographical,she says.

Two works from the Letters to the Universe series continue the personal strain,with each using one side of the artist’s grandmother’s brocade waistcoat. Stickers of butterflies surround the protagonist in one work,while the other seems suggestive of more activity with a line of stickers of tigers forming the border on one side of the canvas,and other stickers,including those of a motorcycle,an elephant and birds,in other parts of the work. The stickers provide a touch of glamour. However,the artist believes that the works retain a sense of quiet despite them. “These works are glitzy because of the popular stickers,” she says. “At the same time,they’re so iconic and quiet.”

The stickers themselves are a source of discussion. For instance,one may wonder what place a number of Barbie stickers could possibly have in one of these works. The artist believes otherwise. “When you take something ornamental and place it in a space,it is obliged to change itself,” she says.