Splendid bondage

Vidya Kamat is a mid-generation artist, art historian and writer living in Mumbai who also teaches comparative mythology. Perhaps all these elements of her preoccupation, along with the fact that she is a woman, have contributed to the character of her art work.

A distanced look at socio-cultural moulds blends here with a metaphoric structure, both being embedded within an emotively charged, corporeal intimacy, while the contemporary technique and aesthetic language respond to a vast, real life situation which is pervaded by archaic forms, notions and compulsions.

Her "Birthmarks" exhibition at Sumukha (December 7 to 19) speaks about the female condition in this country by focussing on one but very strong manifestation of it - personal adornment. Her success here relies as much on its loaded value as on letting it merely suggest broader implications without stating the same. Several photographic images collage fragments of the artist's face and body with motifs from zardozi embroidery.

 In tune with the subject, the not too large prints induce close viewing. The polyester film being lit from behind heightens the intimacy of contact but also sharpens the subversive beauty of the ornate thread patterns, as their virtually physical penetration into the skin bring a more intellectual recognition.

The rich, abundant splendour of the fabric design brings associations with weddings or rituals and with the woman defined as well as bonded by her opulent clothes that literally impose on her patriarchal society's paradigms. The intricacy of the ornamentation is alluring but simultaneously harsh, the metallic twines somewhere meandering smoothly over the face and somewhere almost piercing it and eating into the flesh. The enchanting hues at times verge on the eerie, as the ancient patterns link and clash with allusions to make-up and fashionable tattoos.

The look and gestures of the woman oscillate between tender palpability and calm, grave acceptance. Her fingers may be touching an embroidered earlobe, to make one expect an earring there.

They may reach to her feet as though checking the traceries of henna. The spectator can read this, on the one hand, as creating her identity from the source she was born in, and on the other, sense the discomfort, even the oppressiveness of the same that is bound to generate defiance. The images are interrupted-framed by four hazier prints carrying words: emboss, etch, embed and erupt.

A large kaleidoscope of fragmentary, unadorned palms evocative of probing, taking, holding or just being physical in their direct photography image offers an open conclusion as well as trust in the capability for self-definition.
Admiring the authenticity of the concern and the imagery, one would have only wished a more powerful visualisation of the disturbing aspects of the theme.

Interactive fest

The contribution from visual arts to the latest Bangalore Habba came with a difference. Rather than presenting art works to the public, artists often successfully tried to involve it directly in what was happening and in the ideas behind it.

The smaller scale and compact area helped too, as did an element of play. Besides the children's painted boxes relating to ecology, the fun part acted fine in Fred Martin's masks taken from visitors' faces and hands which were eventually gifted to the models.

Oscillating between naturalness and playful expressionism, they seriously-humorously reacted to the academic grandeur of the royal monument on which they rested. Kiran Sahi asked people to make little figures and objects of clay conjuring the mood around votive offerings and a sacred tree.

Respect for nature was addressed too by the performance of Smitha Cariappa dressed in plants and lumps of grass bearing soil which culminated in a feast of sprout salad.

 A fine installation displayed gifts given by rather poor people for the dying nation, now wrapped in surgical gauze of healing and placed together with bowls holding less permanent offerings from the Shrishti school students who had collected the gifts. Its aesthetic clearly was Jehangir Jani's.

 As the guiding spirit of the workshop which led to the installation, it must have been central to stimulate emotions and reflections during the students' interacting with the donors.

Homage to the teacher

As a tribute to her late mentor R.M. Hadapad, Sunitha R. held a site-specific installation at his Ken School of Art (December 8 and 9). There was something very sincere and true in this conceptually formulated act of gratitude to the artist who, although a modernist, was able to inspire many of his students towards independent, contemporary probing. Sunitha placed clay-covered earthworms in the middle of sheets of paper which then moved attracted by the soil that surrounded the sheets, leaving a trail of ochre lines behind. Partly hesitant or tangled, partly clear and almost straight, these lines are to her a metaphor for the students as artists "created by Hadapad". A whole host of such natural, but steered, images filled two rooms in the school, with a material-derived expressiveness reacting to the make-shift, punctured walls, but looking somewhat flimsy when hanging unframed in mid-air. If the work was moving without achieving a really powerful aesthetic impact, that was maybe as well, since its value lay primarily in the gesture born of thought and emotion.

Mid-level

Ethos, the new gallery in town was inaugurated with a "Kaleidoscopic Journey" through the mid-level painting landscape of mostly Karnataka art ( 296B, 9th A Main, 38th Cross, 5th Block, Jayanagar). Thus, an array of rather old-fashioned and familiar idioms gathered a number of second hand modernist choices from abstracts to abstraction mixed with softly realistic and ethnic-stylised figures and to surface-bound, hesitant attempts at a contemporary form. More interest was generated by the works of V.G. Venugopal, Jayakumar G.R. and Urmila Naik K.

Kerala four

In the group of painters from Kerala showing their "Effects" at the CKP (December 2 to 8) one half engaged in consummate but conventional choices of sketchy realistic scenery with a note of attractive drama (Basanth Peringode) and of a soft design-resembling, somewhat modernist figuration (Sreemal Kumar Raj).
One appreciated better the phantasmagorical beauty of Everestraj's blooming plants and Mani Kakkara's precise but stirring still-lifes.