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Lot Essay
Anju Dodiya’s work comes loaded with poetic symbolism, cross-pollinated by references from a broad array of cultures, media and historical periods, from classical Medieval and Renaissance paintings and tapestries to Japanese Ukio-e prints and the films of Ingmar Bergman. Her meticulous paintings depict dream-like, mysterious scenes, in which Dodiya is often the main protagonist, finding her way through dramatic, archetypal narratives that are sometimes whimsical, sometimes terrifying and violent.
Flame Play is part of a suite of double-sided works by Dodiya, first displayed as the site-specific installation, Throne of Frost, at the Durbar Hall of Lakshmi Vilas Palace in Baroda in 2007. Each of the works, comprising a watercolor and charcoal painting on paper and an embroidered mattress, was displayed within a free-standing rectangular enclosure with the painting facing inward and the mattress facing the viewer. Within the formation lay shards of broken mirrors that reflected both the paintings and the opulent décor of Durbar Hall.
“Once the decision was taken that the paintings were going to be looking onto the mirrors and I was going to play with the reflections, the back of the painting was a problem. I thought that I would just layer it with fabric; it was something I had used over the years. And then I thought that a mattress was a better idea simply because it would catch the light of those eight fabulous chandeliers [...] it's like [the paintings] are standing in a Durbar and wearing robes and that they should have some insignia behind [...] [the embroidery] became like a parallel narrative. There was a theater going on and they connected to the front: sometimes in direct ways and sometimes there was a clue to the painting. Sometimes it was a secret code” (The artist in conversation with Gieve Patel, Bodhi Art, Mumbai, April 2007).
Flame Play is part of a suite of double-sided works by Dodiya, first displayed as the site-specific installation, Throne of Frost, at the Durbar Hall of Lakshmi Vilas Palace in Baroda in 2007. Each of the works, comprising a watercolor and charcoal painting on paper and an embroidered mattress, was displayed within a free-standing rectangular enclosure with the painting facing inward and the mattress facing the viewer. Within the formation lay shards of broken mirrors that reflected both the paintings and the opulent décor of Durbar Hall.
“Once the decision was taken that the paintings were going to be looking onto the mirrors and I was going to play with the reflections, the back of the painting was a problem. I thought that I would just layer it with fabric; it was something I had used over the years. And then I thought that a mattress was a better idea simply because it would catch the light of those eight fabulous chandeliers [...] it's like [the paintings] are standing in a Durbar and wearing robes and that they should have some insignia behind [...] [the embroidery] became like a parallel narrative. There was a theater going on and they connected to the front: sometimes in direct ways and sometimes there was a clue to the painting. Sometimes it was a secret code” (The artist in conversation with Gieve Patel, Bodhi Art, Mumbai, April 2007).