Feminine truths, Bared

Born and brought up in New Delhi, Kanchan received her formal training in painting and printmaking from

College of Art, New Delhi, Kunsthochschule in Berlin and Art School at Santiago, Chile. Beginning as a graphic artist in the 8217;80s, she has travelled a full circle from etchings in black and white to female torsos in vibrant hues. After her brother8217;s death in 1980, images of death, despair and desolation crept into her works. The result was two groups of etches called Shadows of Death and Bereaved. A scholarship to study in France in 1984 was the time when colour began to flood back into her canvas again. 8220;Colours began to dominate my work after I got married and began to experience the brighter aspects of life,8221; Kanchan reveals.

Her nudes are also an explosion of colour. Using myriad idioms, forms and mediums, she has crafted identifiable images of feminine power. The artist is part of a group of contemporary women painters like Anupam Sood, Shruti Chandra Gupta, Vasundara Tiwari, Arpana Cour and Rekha Rodwittiya, who have been using the female nude to question the normative representation of women. Nudes done by male artists, Kanchan points out, project women as erotic objects. In contrast, works by women are 8220;a result of deep attachment and understanding of one8217;s own body. They are a revelation of the inner self.8221;

But unlike most artists, who use hand gestures and facial expressions to convey the mood and drift of the painting, Kanchan uses limbless torsos to convey her point. The figures might give an impression of incompleteness to many, but for the artist they are the best possible way to talk about womanhood at large. The absence of any physical movement only adds to the iconic quality of her imagery. 8220;The idea was not to trap my expression in a pre-defined limit. Any woman can identify with the forms that I create,8221; she says.

The artist has also taken on the male gaze head-on through her work, a six-foot-high painting of a male torso, titled Male/Nail. 8220;How many times have you come across male nudes done by male artists?8221; she asks pointedly. The work is a figure filled with nails, hammers, saws and other tools drawn with great detailing and it underlines power and chauvinism. 8220;It is a male body seen through feminine eyes. I couldn8217;t find a better idiom to define what the so-called 8216;stronger sex8217; does to us,8221; says Kanchan.

In her female nudes, on the other hand, she makes use of flowers, key, locks, seeds and other motifs to underline feminine attributes. The real challenge lies in relating to it absolutely and expressing it without any inhibitions. And in the case of nudes, to identify with one8217;s sexuality and be vocal about it,8221; she adds.

There is a thin line between being vulgar and being open about something, she says. 8220;Though undraped, my paintings do not come across as cheap renditions of female sexuality. On the other hand, they render a voice and expression to the suppressed feelings of a woman in society,8221; she says. From her preoccupation with the Bhoota figures of Karnataka, tribal forms and images of the Shakti cult, she has painted numerous manifestations of feminine power.

Her subjects may be feminine, but Kanchan doesn8217;t see herself as a feminist. 8220;Questioning life and depicting it as it is does not make me biased. The idea is to speak my mind without being didactic,8221; she says. One look at the new series shaping up in her studio tells you she doesn8217;t need to pontificate. The bright reds, luminous cerulean blues and deep yellows speak of desire and passion rippling through bodies. This is art of celebration, of liberation.