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Lot 28

 

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A talented draughtsman, Anju Dodiya frequently uses the self-image to reference the struggles involved in the process of developing and deconstructing ideas and images and, more specifically, the complexity and violence of her own creative process.

According to Kamala Kapoor the artist’s works, including the present lot, “…go beyond self-portraiture”. In these large-format watercolours, “…Dodiya manipulates technique and subject... A talented draughtsman, Anju Dodiya frequently uses the self-image to reference the struggles involved in the process of developing and deconstructing ideas and images and, more specifically, the complexity and violence of her own creative process.

According to Kamala Kapoor the artist’s works, including the present lot, “…go beyond self-portraiture”. In these large-format watercolours, “…Dodiya manipulates technique and subject matter to a deeper logic: the articulation of the artist’s dilemma in contemporary times. Whether she indulges in a bit of post-Modernist cannibalism, bypasses all exclusionary categories and juxtaposes the distant past with a present that usurps it… the inherent drama in these works invariably bespeaks her real interest: the stat of the artist poised mid-point between the irreducible subjectivity of her allegorical narratives and the intellectual beckoning of nonsensual, conceptual elements that pervade today’s art world” (“Holding the Mountain”, Anju Dodiya Recent Paintings, Gallery Chemould, Mumbai, 1996, unpaginated).

In the present lot, the artist’s image appears amidst scrolls of blank paper, dangling a larger-than-life pencil from a string tied to one of her fingers. Standing opposite her, a shadowy figure in elaborate costume, possibly an alter-ego or mirror-image, seems to be knighting the artist, or perhaps, as the title suggests, blessing her and her instruments so that she may ply her trade.

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