Important Notice

Although she has worked in several different media, fabric has always fascinated Anju Dodiya; from the way in which Robert Rauschenberg, an artist she admires, incorporated pieces of cloth in his collages, to the intricate weaves and patterns that textiles offer her as an escape from the intimidating whiteness or blankness of paper. Always cognizant of, and forthcoming about the violence inherent to her creative process, the artist explains,... Although she has worked in several different media, fabric has always fascinated Anju Dodiya; from the way in which Robert Rauschenberg, an artist she admires, incorporated pieces of cloth in his collages, to the intricate weaves and patterns that textiles offer her as an escape from the intimidating whiteness or blankness of paper. Always cognizant of, and forthcoming about the violence inherent to her creative process, the artist explains, "When you work on paper, confronting that white is a terribly fearful thing. With textile, something's there already, and I have to interact with the textures. It made the painting process more carefree for me. And there was a great pleasure in working with the textures and also kind of fighting them with the paint. It was great fun" (as quoted in "Gieve Patel talks to Anju Dodiya", Anju Dodiya, Bose Pacia exhibition catalogue, 2006, not paginated).

Dodiya's use of mattresses in her work has added a new dimension to her painterly affiliation with fabric. Reflecting on this, she says, "…the mattresses, when they are up against the wall, the bulge has a terrific physical presence…it's a pregnant painting. It has a lot of body, and it has this presence that I thought I could use and work with…Also, because the mattress is a bed it threw off new ideas that had to do with my areas of interest and content. I got to thinking more about bodies and relationships and sleep and dreams. Those have always been important to my work" (Ibid.). According to Ranjit Hoskote, in these three dimensional works, Dodiya "…obliges us to attend to the semiotics of the mattress: here is a place of sleep, a place of dream, a place of erotic encounter, joy and disturbance. Here is where the Self and the Other meet, discover one another's nuances, connect and retreat" ("A Compass with Ten Directions", The Artist Lives and Works in Baroda Bombay Calcutta Mysore Rotterdam Trivandrum, Galerie Mirchandani + Steinruecke exhibition catalogue, 2005, not paginated).

The present lot offers viewers a daunting self-portrait of the artist wearing a loosely wrapped turban and high-collared dress. Above her head, a large crown floats like a halo, hinting at themes of captivity and sovereignty, obligation and independence. An oversized pronged medieval weapon and a pencil suspended from the crown in front of the subject's face link these ideas with the artist's ongoing concerns about her creative process, and the violence she believes is inherent in it. As Gayatri Sinha explains, in Dodiya's work, "…the real confrontations are vigorously enacted in a theatre of the self. Dodiya's inward conflicts and concerns, particularly those that emanate from her art practice, are mirrored in a series of dramatic images" ("Feminism and Women Artists in India", Contemporary Indian Art: Other Realities, Marg Publications, Mumbai, 2002, p. 72).

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