The exhibition, Women Sculptures in Modern India, at Aakriti Art Gallery, curated by Mrinal Ghosh, featured a wide variety of works by 16 participants, two of whom — Reba Hore and Shanu Lahiri — are already deceased. This was not really a definitive picture of India’s sculpture scene for many well-known practitioners were left out.
Shanu Lahiri’s turbaned head of a tribal wearing a necklace seemed to be composed out of found material. There was another sculpture of a mother and child with elongated bodies. Reba Hore’s small terracotta sculptures, one reclining
like a Rodin work, had powerful faces reminiscent of Rabin Mondal’s primitives.
Uma Siddhanta’s figures had a lyrical grace that is her hallmark. Jayashree Chakravarty’s bronzes echoed the forms and concerns of her larger works. Nature under assault — a recurrent theme — reappeared here in the arboreal forms. Her twin heads with their fine lines had a strong presence.
Shipra Bhattacharya’s female heads, too, were born of her bright paintings of sensuous femininity. Her women had endless necks and their mouths were parted in ecstasy. Latika Katt’s marble piece looked as if the actual form would break through shackles and reveal itself like the parasitical plants burrowing through the walls of old buildings.
Mausumi Roy created pieces of pure kitsch in stoneware. The minuscule pets were decked out in bright apparel (picture, left). Seema Kohli’s acrobatic female form was a creature of fantasy with her intricately carved body and long serpentine braids (picture, right). Alakananda Sengupta’s naked male body with a donkey’s head could have been Nick Bottom, only it had strings where his genitals ought to have been. Her terracotta female head was in a trance.
Facial features were inscribed on Chandana Hore’s piece. Nilima Goel was inspired by Buddhist art and the form of stupas. Soma Chakraborty experimented with soft sculpture. Her bright red quilted form had the warmth of an embrace. Both Bansari Khan and Chaitali Chanda should try to come out of the shadow of Meera Mukherjee.