2007

There is a strong autobiographical element in Lajmi’s works. The works executed from late 80's and early 90's, highlight the hidden tension between her men and women. They bring forth the different roles that they play. In more recent works she captures the natural bonding that exists between women.

Lajmi’s concern is primarily the “woman” and her experience in patriarchal society. The negotiations that take place in public and personal spheres. There is a gentle empathy among her characters. Simplified forms heighten the emotive quality of the characters in Lalitha’s canvases.

(Tuesday, December 4 to Thursday, December 20)

The progress of Sujata Bajaj, whose work I have been faithfully following for twenty years, is exemplary. She has maintained her vision while expanding it, and her technique has followed.

Every time we see her work, characterised as it is by a mix of dash and control, we feel it transmits an energy that is akin to a sense of well-being. This colour springs from her as if by surprise. It is her need, her necessity, ber deepest nature. When I look upon some of her works, I feel she invented the colour red. Or even, shades of red. Her unmistakable concern is not to make something new but to make something come alive.
Jean-Claude Carrier

(Tuesday, October 30 to Tuesday, November 27)

The visual exuberance of flowers carpeted on canvas, is of course instantly striking in Gogi Saroj Pal’s recent works, but there are secrets within that are not as immediately revealed.

Women and flowers share many metaphors- of beauty, delicacy, sweetness, fragility, perfume, embellishment, eroticism and sensuality. In her image making, Gogi has made a shift from her composite mythic imagery such as the bird form in Kinnari and the cow in Kamdhenu, but continues to express the ‘experiences of the feminine’. She has always believed that living traditions need to be challenged and hence had painted Indian traditional nayikas (heroines) transformed by her through the insertion of fantasy, desire and satire. Gogi has painted the features of her ethnic female in different skin shades to highlight her experiences of living in different regions of India. She further adds, “it made me understand that ‘Indian’ is a plural concept and does not have any specific features, it is hardly uniform or homogenous.”

In the present series, Gogi locates her nayika amidst the full-blossomed nature that seems a perfect place for retreat from the hectic world into a self-possessed space. For Gogi as a modern woman who herself relocated from a small village in Himachal to the urbanity of New Delhi, there is a certain nostalgia about traditions that have been displaced with the accelerated pace of modern life. Certain values and aesthetics seem to have faded out of practice. One of these has been the tradition of ‘shringara’ that highlighted the erotica and sensuality in life and in painting, as the rasa was richly evoked through the fabric, dress, make-up, posture and surroundings. Gogi draws upon the established past artistic traditions where there are indeed fine examples of this rasa. For instance in the Mughal and Rajput miniatures, where the design and intricate patterning within the fabric enriched the two-dimensional form, and the dress highlighted the interplay of revealed and concealed sensuality. Later, Gogi also found in Raja Ravi Varma a seductive sensuality in the oft-used transparent and slippery drapes of his heroines, suggestive of unspoken intentions and desires. And all this through their dress, posture and props.

The sensuousness of form, the dazzle of rich colours, transparency of garments, the half concealed sexuality- all accentuated the beauty of the female form and the romance of life in Indian art. In this series, Gogi has dressed her heroines in the popular North India dress- the salwar-kameez worn with a flowing dupatta. What she finds visually very attractive is that the dress covers the complete body, leaving only the face, hands and feet visible, and the naked skin in contrast to the fabric pulls our gaze towards it. Gogi’s observation of this is reflected in her portrayal of women in this series.

In these works one finds, that Gogi has intelligently played around with the ‘painted’ and ‘printed’ fabric, often challenging the viewer to identify one from the other. Inventing strategies of camouflaging and illusioning, she has often overpainted and highlighted parts through sensual touches on the fabric to tone it to her desired effect. Thickness of the fabric and its fine quality play a determining role here in layering the acrylic touches. At times, she uses a strategy of reversal, turning the body into fabric and often the fabric into body mass. For instance in the blue painting, while the actual presence of the fabric and its colour is retained on the body of the woman, it is subtly layered with paint all around to evoke a blue mood. Using corrective procedures, Gogi creates a delicate and soft separation of the figure and the background, which is otherwise the same in pattern and colour.

Gogi simultaneously addresses the issue of perspective- the relation of figure and ground/space in her paintings. She circumvents the scientific for the poetic in the posturing of the figures, as they dream, recline, bend over, stretch out and are zoomed in and out on a single plane amidst the rich foliage, much in the Indian folk tradition. And then we have the woman sewing flowers in a garland or to wear in her hair as ornamentation, their aroma being known to arouse passion. In one, she has even used the physical thread and actual needle in the work, ready as if to bring together the scattered flowers in a single thread. Most interestingly, in one of the works, Gogi tricks us by her wit, articulating the woman behind the printed flowers on the surface. She blurs some printed portions and paints the woman in a pale white transparent garment. The projected flowers behave as a curtain from which she peeps through. At times, she uses the same flower of the print and transforms it in her hairdo, her dress, dupatta and the backdrop. And then there is a work that creates the night ambience, the darkness hiding all from sight, except the woman’s face, caught in a moment of waiting and longing. Once again, the woman is emerging from behind the printed flowers, improvised and accentuated by the rare touches of her brush. In another work, Gogi tries out the magic of yellow on yellow, and the flowers she is sewing are called parijatak which is a white flower with an orange stem, highly perfumed and offered to the gods in puja (ritual of worship). Yet in another, there is a butterfly romancing the flowers on the fabric, fluttering close to her body affirming feminine attraction.

For Gogi, who diligently adheres to her creative instinct and experimental temperament, this new alliance between the printed and the painted may lead to newer and fresher forms of co-existence and connections…to embroider we hope, processes of life and art.

Roobina Karode,
Art Historian
Winter 2004, New Delhi

(Wednesday, February 7 to Wednesday, February 21)