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Lot 67

 

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Anjolie Ela Menon has continually reinvented her art throughout her career, developing a one- of-a-kind aesthetic that has significantly enriched the language of Indian art. Her experiments with painted objects in the 1990s led to a growing interest in kitsch-the mythological imagery of calendar art, popularised by Raja Ravi Varma, Bollywood film posters, and other visual cues from urban India- which she explored further in her work during the... Anjolie Ela Menon has continually reinvented her art throughout her career, developing a one- of-a-kind aesthetic that has significantly enriched the language of Indian art. Her experiments with painted objects in the 1990s led to a growing interest in kitsch-the mythological imagery of calendar art, popularised by Raja Ravi Varma, Bollywood film posters, and other visual cues from urban India- which she explored further in her work during the early 2000s. She began to layer images derived from Hindu mythology with elements from her own distinctive style, often with an ironical or satirical eye, to “find the bridge between the so-called ‘low art’ of the streets and the ‘high art’ that we purport to be practising.” (Artist quoted in C Uday Bhaskar, “Gods and Others”, Anjolie Ela Menon: Through the Patina, New Delhi: Vadehra Art Gallery, 2010, p. 334)

Critic Gayatri Sinha remarks, “In this body of work… Menon acknowledges the separation of elite art practices and the bazaar, and the…conflation of the devotional with the commercial, and the vitality of the mythic in the popular sphere as signifiers of commercial value. Menon posits the viewing of the Gods or darshan as the only lasting ‘artistic’ engagement of the Indian middle classes. In her fusion of elements, Menon assumes an ironic stance... The Gods, appropriated by the calendar art market now appear to embody the values of the market. The notions of aesthetics is inextricably tied in with acts of barkat or acts of worship for profit, which Menon is quick to implicate and parody in her work.” (Gayatri Sinha, “Cultural Contexts and Kitsch”, Celebration: Paintings by Anjolie Ela Menon, California: ArtsIndia, 2006, p. 71)

“I was raised as a Brahmo Samaji and we don’t believe in idol worship, but I find both Western and Indian mythology a great source of aesthetics,” explains the artist, referencing the influence of religion on her work despite her personal agnosticism. (Artist quoted in Noor Anand Chawla, “Anjolie Ela Menon: Prima Donna of Fabulism”, Open Magazine, 13 January 2023, online) In lot 67, she depicts two familiar images of the Hindu god Hanuman. In one, Hanuman is in mid- flight, his arms outstretched, though the mountain Dronagiri he is to be carrying-meant to bring the life-saving herb, Sanjivani, to save Lakshman’s life-is notably missing. In the other, Hanuman is presented as a headless figure on bended knee, tearing open his chest to display physical proof of his devotion to Ram and Sita. A nude female figure-a defining motif in Menon’s oeuvre-draped in a gauzy cloth, appears to float across the canvas, lending it an air of mystery.

In lot 51, Menon depicts a human figure with the head of Panchmukhi Hanuman, the five-headed avatar the god assumed to rescue Ram and Lakshman from Ahiravana, who had been enlisted by his brother Ravana to win the war in Lanka. The serpent coiled around the figure’s arm and the apple in its other hand are both Biblical symbols that reflect the influence of ecclesiastical art from the Renaissance, Gothic, and Byzantine periods, which Menon has often referenced both symbolically and aesthetically in her work throughout her career.

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