Expulsion

The painting depicts a girl moving away from an easel. The figure is a direct transposition of a newspaper photograph of the famous tennis star Monica Seles during a sweaty, disappointing moment in a tennis match. What struck me was her posture which was so much like that of Adam in the famous 15th century frescoes of Masaccio in the Brancacci Chapel in Florence. This is the image of the Expulsion from the Garden of Eden when Adam and Eve are driven away, distressed, in shame. I thought it was an interesting juxtaposition of the artist's/sportsman's defeat against a biblical story. Of course, all this, is in the artist's mind. (In conversation with the artist, January 2011)

Anju Dodiya's work deals with the quest to constantly re-invent herself, often "she teases and coaxes the image into birth, displaying her different selves before the viewer with wit, humour and ironic finesse". (Nancy Adajania, Anju Dodiya, Max Mueller Bhavan, Mumbai, 1999, p. 1)