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Lot Essay
Anju Dodiya includes aspects of self-portraiture in many of her works. The protagonists of her meticulous watercolours, intense charcoal drawings and acrylic paintings on upholstery and mattresses are all fictive alter-egos cast into a variety of whimsical, theatrical and sometimes violent scenarios. Her compositions and imagery are drawn from a wide spectrum of sources ranging from Medieval and Renaissance painting and tapestry and Japanese ukiyo-e prints to European films and mass media images.
While Dodiya has long insisted that the work is firmly situated in the private, gender neutral realm of the artistic self, the paintings have a distinctly feminine character. In dialogue with Gieve Patel she states about her work carrying her own physiognomy: "When I was with an art school, all five years, I did very abstract collages. But all the while my sketch books would be filled with drawings of the self. After art school, I had reached a dead end with collages. I wanted to return to the figure, and it was a very desperate need. That was when I thought these sketch books might help, and, I started painting "myself". I found that I was getting interested in specific situations in a very special kind of way - private moments, these private moments, mostly an artist's private moments! The private discourse that goes on within oneself when one is alone." (Artist Statement, 'An Allegory of the Creative Process', The Art News Magazine of India, Volume I Issue IV, p. 40)
Her choice of watercolour, her focus on the female body, her deep interest in patterns - both as imagery and as a medium, as seen in her recent works on embroidered fabric and mattresses - and her literary allusions to female protagonists of ancient myths, all link her to a previous generation of feminist artists such as Arpita Singh, Nalini Malani and Nilima Sheikh.
While Dodiya has long insisted that the work is firmly situated in the private, gender neutral realm of the artistic self, the paintings have a distinctly feminine character. In dialogue with Gieve Patel she states about her work carrying her own physiognomy: "When I was with an art school, all five years, I did very abstract collages. But all the while my sketch books would be filled with drawings of the self. After art school, I had reached a dead end with collages. I wanted to return to the figure, and it was a very desperate need. That was when I thought these sketch books might help, and, I started painting "myself". I found that I was getting interested in specific situations in a very special kind of way - private moments, these private moments, mostly an artist's private moments! The private discourse that goes on within oneself when one is alone." (Artist Statement, 'An Allegory of the Creative Process', The Art News Magazine of India, Volume I Issue IV, p. 40)
Her choice of watercolour, her focus on the female body, her deep interest in patterns - both as imagery and as a medium, as seen in her recent works on embroidered fabric and mattresses - and her literary allusions to female protagonists of ancient myths, all link her to a previous generation of feminist artists such as Arpita Singh, Nalini Malani and Nilima Sheikh.