Art146;s New Clothes

Art historian, graphic artist and designer Paula Sengupta, the young and upcoming multimedia artist Rahki Peswani and the feisty Mithu Sen think their needle makes a point. After all, established American artist Kiki Smith also showed her works in Mumbai and majority of them were drawings and prints on paper, moving away from mere displays of technical excellence.

Smith explains that it8217;s not only to challenge the market that women chose a different medium. 8220;I don8217;t make diabolical statements in my art. I choose printmaking, sculpture and paper because the medium interests me8230;not merely to make a statement.8221;

Sengupta agrees. 8220;I have reached a stage where I use the material according to the demands of my work. If it required me to do a canvas I would. However, in this exhibition, 8 Short Bazaar, my choice of material is very deliberate.8221;

Her process is meticulous and time-consuming, a thrashing out of issues. 8220;The bourgeois women of the Bhramo family in Kolkata are educated and hence, emancipated. However, they are also taught 8216;womanly8217; skills like sewing, laying tables, making tea and flower arrangements,8221; says Sengupta who dips into her own life and comes up with a witty and moving critique.

She used her in-laws8217; large colonial house in Kolkata as a case study. 8220;I look at the families as a case study to address the whole issue of conservation of heritage. When we conserve inheritance, do we question the values of those who inhabited the space and their relation with the city?8221;

In a series of single-print etchings, Sengupta examines the post-colonial practice of making perfect ladies of girls. They are forbidden to run and play like boys. In several of the prints, the shoes of the little girl are seen running away from the cloistered confines of the homestead and the heel of the shoe, as if it were on the verge of breaking. The rendering of the image is childlike and surrounded by rhyme that questions why she can8217;t go out and play like the rest.

In the installation No Male Issue!, Sengupta8217;s delicate paper curtains draw the viewer to the cloying, cloistered interior of a parlour where mannequin inhabitants have set the table for a tea party. Sengupta says her work raises important questions: 8220;How does the female domestic space have a bearing on the larger socio-political changes of the time? I also underline my position as an urban emancipated woman, since I too am a product of this layered upbringing.8221; The series took off when she found a set of napkins in the family closet.

Rakhi Peswani used to hide her embroidery in her cupboard when she was in art school in Vadodara8217;s MS University. 8220;I kept it stacked away and was afraid to show them since all my batch mates and teachers were male. What if they found them too feminine or craft oriented? It is only now that I am away from those 8216;artistic8217; constraints, that I have been able to show my work,8221; says Peswani whose recent exhibition at Birla Art Gallery displayed a series of embroidered cloth, soft sculptures and works on paper.

8220;I have been preoccupied with looking at cloth and its wear and tear for a while now and while I am aware of the feminist connotations, I am simply working from the perspective of being a woman. I began by questioning the notions of sculpture8230;it8217;s a male dominated field and I8217;ve had personal problems with the way it has been defined,8221; says Peswani whose soft sculpture of a big needle came about long before the show was conceived. 8220;I have used the same object differently a year later where one is a metaphor and the other a pun.8221;

The fragility of the works did come up when setting up the show at the gallery and it has been hard to sell these works, admits Peswani. 8220; Many collectors wanted to get them framed so that they do not get dirty I wanted to tell them Wash them and use them as bed covers, not all art has to be put up on walls and viewed from afar.8221;

Eternity can wait.