Deconstructing the Monoliths

Noted young sculptor RV Sindhu is on a come back trail after a sabbatical. Mrinal Kulkarni visits the artist at her studio and finds out that Sindhu has more surprises to offer than before.

RV Sindhu

Any time you visit R.V.Sindhu at her home cum studio in Delhi, she has too many surprises for you. Her studio is a crucible of every changing forms. Objects with various shades of red and black dominate the interior as if they were reflecting the personality of the artist, who likes to deck herself up with black suits and a big rend bindi. You feel a sense of déjà vu as if you have seen all those things somewhere else. Then to your awe you realize that the dining table that you see there was once an exhibit in a Delhi gallery. The cot is an installation in its new avatar. None of her sculptural creations exists in its original form. They are always deconstructed and used in different ways. To see the original sculptures, one has to go to her documentation materials or one has to look deeply at her innumerable sculptural drawings. Construction and deconstruction of forms has become a permanent feature of her works for a decade now.

Trained in sculpture at the Banaras Hindu University, both in the literal and metaphorical sense, Sindhu’s works have become the points of ‘breaking’. She questions and breaks down the monolithic and unilateral definitions of sculpture as a solid single object (preferably stone). Production of monolithic sculptures was the hall mark of her alma mater. “This was due to the towering presence of Balbir Sigh Katt and I was never comfortable with this monolithic language,” says Sindhu. As an act of asserting her point of view, Sindhu disinclined to sculpt in stone. Wood and terracotta became her preferred materials. Though she did not work with granite or marble, as if to prove a point, she sculpted a monolithic figure during her graduation program. Titled ‘Endless Drawers’, she exhibited these works in Banaras, New Delhi and Mumbai during mid 1990s.

The image of a woman sculptor working in alternative mediums and at the same time challenging the conventional monoliths was the impediment that stood between her works and their general acceptance. “The practical and aesthetical experiences during this exhibition trip were so strong that I went back to Banaras and literally demolished all those huge sculptures into small pieces. Then I used those bits and pieces to produce other sculptures,” recalls Sindhu. Since then her works became ‘constructed surfaces of several designs and plans’. Hence, as far as her works are concerned, the preparation or the process of making become very important. The process begins with detailed sculptural drawings and then the slow process of collecting materials and making small objects. These scattered looking objects take the shape of an installation only during the time of display.

However, there is a change in her new works. Sindhu has regained her faith in large scale works but again built with small pieces. “Between 1997 and 2003, I involved myself in breaking rather than making objects. My process was different at that time. Now I feel that I have evolved and found a new direction. I have started a few single three dimensional objects using assembled pieces,” she says.

Even in this course of change there are two aspects of Sindhu’s sculptures that have not changed radically. One is their narrative aspect and other the colors she uses. If we see her works like ‘ Endless Drawers’ or ‘ Ganagapar’, ‘Behind the Curtain’ or ‘Lost Memories’ all of them are woven around the narratives of herself as well as those of several women she came to familiarize during these years. “Banaras has been a major narrative in most of my works as I spent a long period there in Banaras. But my Banaras is not the exotic and spiritual city as the world knows. My Banaras is the city of women from Dalmandi or widows on the Ganga Ghat. It is full of sadness and there is nothing to glorify,’ tells Sindhu. She also makes a point clear that now her experiences in the metropolitan life of Delhi are bringing new changes in her life. The silence of two years as a sculptor has also helped her to analyse her own creative process with a distance and clear up several issues. She laughs and informs me that the red and black colour, which got too connected to her has now given away a way to greys.

The ‘she’ in Sindhu’s narrative is not a singular person but a historical entity who wants to redefine the colourful glorification of her identity constructed by culture. She is too conscious about ‘the lost years’ (a work with the same title was shown in ‘Closte/Closets, a show curated by me in 2002) and want to shed off that burden and move ahead. That’s what defines the pain in bright, shining colours. Here I am also reminded of a series of drawings and a works titled ‘Red spot on White Bedsheet’ (this work was exhibited in her graduation final display without the knowledge of college authorities) in which she employed the used sanitary napkins along with sculpted ‘used’ sanitary napkins. “This work was my effort to redefine the ‘she-hood’ of the she in me,” says Sindhu. The menstrual clock that ticks away the life of a woman has turned into a decorative metaphor in Sindhu’s works and she uses it quite effectively in the new works. There is more to expect from this artist.