Important Notice

Lot 31

 

Quick Zoom

“I work on two basic principles. One is celebration of humanism and two, a yearning for reaching beyond the quotidian and rejoicing in freedom and liberation” (the artist quoted in The Margi and the Desi: Between Tradition and Modernity, Gallery Espace exhibition catalogue, 2004, p. 44). A practicing sculptor, cultural anthropologist, musician, writer, illustrator and social worker, Meera Mukherjee was able to simultaneously convey abstract... “I work on two basic principles. One is celebration of humanism and two, a yearning for reaching beyond the quotidian and rejoicing in freedom and liberation” (the artist quoted in The Margi and the Desi: Between Tradition and Modernity, Gallery Espace exhibition catalogue, 2004, p. 44). A practicing sculptor, cultural anthropologist, musician, writer, illustrator and social worker, Meera Mukherjee was able to simultaneously convey abstract spirituality, musicality or rhythm, and the simple wonderment of a child in her bronze sculptures.

Created using the traditional ‘lost wax method’ of casting that she learnt from the Dhokra and Bastar craftspeople of Central India, Mukherjee’s bronzes reflect everyday rural and urban life in contemporary India, as well as the country’s ancient folklore and myths. Carefully sculpting each component in wax before making a clay mould and then casting the entire sculpture in bronze, Mukherjee’s subjects have a characteristic fluidity that belies the tough metal medium she works with.

Describing her sculptures as having “reinscribed the ‘folk’ within the parameters of the ‘modern’” Tapati Guha-Thakurta notes that although the artist has been exhibiting since she was a student, it was the “…years she spent in close observation and participation in folk art methods which would be the most influential and formative for her work. They laid at her disposal a fund of images, conventions, and techniques, which she could embellish with her own expertise and imagination. In her hands, a recognizably folk idiom, one she had closely internalized, was transformed into a sculptural style that bore her inimitable stamp. Similar techniques of preparing moulds and casts, similar ridged and embossed patterns were made to produce a range and type of sculptures whose pedigree was clearly individualist, modern, and urbane” (“Meera Mukherjee: Recasting the Folk Form”, Expressions and Evocations: Contemporary Women Artists of India, Marg Publications, Mumbai, 1996, p. 51).

Read More
Artist Profile
Other works of this artist in: this auction  |  entire site