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Flames and Flowers
The recent solo show of Surekha at the Chemould Prescott Road, Mumbai brings into picture the whole gamut of materials and visual forms that can surface the hidden sensual aspect of relationship between body and it surroundings, says Shubhalakshmi Shukla
A threaded needle can be a significant metaphor to understand the journey of an artist like Surekha. She has been able to explore human experiences which are abstract as well as corporeal at the same time. In her journey she has been able to emphasize upon the Asian philosophical thought of the relationship between human body and the cloth as drapery. Like in ancient Buddhist imageries and some of the early Christian imageries the sensuality of the tormented body becomes deceptive in the form of multiple folds of drapery; Surekha uncovers this sensual in her imagery and reorganizes the apparatus of beauty.
Amongst the women artists in India she has not just explored the mythical in a critical way, but also have been able to bring into picture the whole gamut of materials and visual forms that can surface the hidden sensual aspect of relationship between body and it surroundings.
Her visual preoccupations have been ordinary ethnic materials like a sari (initially she focused upon the blouse). In the present show the displayed translucent white sari is groomed with red paper flowers, also displayed on/around the floor, in order to suggest the central space of the architectural interior through the diagonal relationship between two corners. This happens to come forth as a clear choice when one observes the circular arrangement of vertebras placed on the ground in a diagonal relationship with the corner. Also displayed is a specific combination of torso with light which creates a triangular shadow of light on the wall.
This torso (of vertebras?) gives a specific dimension to the series of women’s torsos displayed in the adjacent hall by Shantamani, which are like the city’s landscapes.
Thus, the totality of the exhibition brings along an experience of panoramic stillness as one of the most substantial experience of women’s inner world; we have come across as poignant preoccupations in Surekha’s works. She envelops her visual forms in sensual substances like light, cloth, thread, needle, hand made paper etc. In this sense her engagement with experiences of trauma is not just a psycho-pathological execution or a cathartic substance, but an amalgamation of the banal and the beautiful which remains devoid of the kitsch. On this note it segregates itself from the visual quality of the present day ‘avant-garde’ that has now completely merged with the urban kitsch.
One of the most interesting set of works in the present show has been a series of digital prints where the body gets dramatized as a dematerialized substance in the form of light and transforms itself into an ethereal substance. It rises from the valley of flowers to needles and yet portrays a sublime aspect ( like the unbearable lightness of being)
Surekha also takes a thread from the Chinese line drawing while enhancing the relations ship between women’s sensuality and a flower. While she resumes the ordained fragility in the drawing the totality of the visual creates a critical expression of macabre that reflects as flowers.
Her recent engagements with the video works allow the elements of movement and sound in her imagery to enhance the aspect of ‘time’ in relation to the work. Time gets manifested in the videos as dislocated, and yet suggestive of the time in the real physical space.
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