.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
One of the closest and most long-lasting relationships the Gandhys had with any artist was with the pioneering modern sculptor, Pilloo Pochkhanawala. Gallery Chemould hosted major solo shows of her works in the 1970s, including a retrospective accompanied by programmes to facilitate interaction among various visual and performing arts. In 1996 Chemould hosted a commemorative exhibition marking the artist's tenth death anniversary.
Pochkhanawala's body of work, ranging from intricate preparatory drawings and theatrical sets to monumental public sculptures, explores and applies various materials, textures and techniques innovatively to engage with the concepts of time, space and nature, in a "rare marriage between form and content", as Anahite Contractor notes. "Since Pochkhanawala first began to sculpt in 1951 at the relatively late age of twenty-eight, her obsession was to unscramble the tight boundaries of space which were available to her through the time she existed in. Her arrangement of motifs, the strategic use of negative space around them, the aesthetic disproportions and, occasionally, her violent distortions even within the abstract mode she chose to work with, render to Pochkhanawala's sculpture a keen dynamism even today." (A. Contractor, 'Pilloo Pochkhanawala: Disharmony and Inner Mechanics', Expressions & Evocations: Contemporary Women Artists of India, Marg Publications, Mumbai, 1996, pp. 42-43)
This collection of drawings and preliminary sketches, like a set of blueprints, offers insight into the artist's visualisation process and her unique approach to form, space and material.
Pochkhanawala's body of work, ranging from intricate preparatory drawings and theatrical sets to monumental public sculptures, explores and applies various materials, textures and techniques innovatively to engage with the concepts of time, space and nature, in a "rare marriage between form and content", as Anahite Contractor notes. "Since Pochkhanawala first began to sculpt in 1951 at the relatively late age of twenty-eight, her obsession was to unscramble the tight boundaries of space which were available to her through the time she existed in. Her arrangement of motifs, the strategic use of negative space around them, the aesthetic disproportions and, occasionally, her violent distortions even within the abstract mode she chose to work with, render to Pochkhanawala's sculpture a keen dynamism even today." (A. Contractor, 'Pilloo Pochkhanawala: Disharmony and Inner Mechanics', Expressions & Evocations: Contemporary Women Artists of India, Marg Publications, Mumbai, 1996, pp. 42-43)
This collection of drawings and preliminary sketches, like a set of blueprints, offers insight into the artist's visualisation process and her unique approach to form, space and material.