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Squarely, two things were propped up against both this show’s and my odds on a weekday afternoon. The burgeoning peak of summer heat, and the fact that the exhibit was curated not around theme, but the hands of seven South Asian women artists, explicitly defined that way. (I really do think such curations tend to veer into a performative laundry line of all women on earth being mysterious subjects, who hide away in a somehow globally similar patriarchy.)
Well… the second strike’s not quite as true. Pristine Contemporary is Defence Colony’s hardest gallery to spot, squeezed between a meat shop and other small stores on a busy street – and shows are therefore compact, and extremely tightly curated. I already know to expect better.
At She, you meet seven immediately distinct styles, subjects that go from bold-eyed to blurry-faced to plumped-up and not human, and the pains and pleasures of womanhood only slowly hover from painting to painting. What immediately stands out after the gallery’s glass door is slid, for one, are the artists’ first names – printed big, bold, black, deigning over their paintings. That’s about it for the narrative bit.
The art and the artists
Jahnvi Singh Rohet’s works use the physicality of the cis female body to border on fantasy, imagining what I interpreted as leftover imprints of the male gaze being upturned, in a cat-and-rat chase, and being entirely done away with, all at once. Many moods in what look like similar subjects on the surface. I’m very fond of 'Girls Hunting', which features a frazzled Mickey Mouse being hunted.
Every single one of Pem Lham’s paintings is untitled, focusing on a similar sort of face. Some faces are almost pop-up balloon-ish heads, reminding me heavily of Junji Ito’s horror, but others are perfectly serene, a mushroom or a flower co-existing with a cheek. What to watch very carefully for, in my opinion, in each of them: the eyes.
Afina Ashraf has four sparing paintings put up, where hair becomes a carrier of burdens, tightly braided as domestic work is. Blank parchment-toned space is used very well. It’s very interesting to see two similar poses of a girl in two paintings where an additional subject – probably a mother or grandmother figure – throws in another dimension to the second.
Next to these is Krisha Bhuva’s work, just three of them, so I’m wary of spoiling it for you. I’ll say this: I think it says tremendous volumes about womanhood as a target without featuring a single woman in-frame, as easy as it is to focus on the details of the flora.
‘A Living Performance’ by Mays Al Moosawi is impossible to ignore. Her paintings’ subjects – boisterous, fully present, somewhat relaxed – feel acutely unaware of being watched, which is, of course, ironic. Perhaps the point of the set, I think, at least until I see her last, titled ‘She gives love to everyone, but forgets herself’, where a tiny mirror is perched on a magnificently blue body.
Alishba Binte Faysal stands out in a muted tone. That may sound ironic, but her works almost feel like mental photographs of times long gone by, and it’s like it’s up to you, frame by frame, to decide why these faces (of starkly different characters) have faded away– as happy memories as they may seem from the outline.
Mahnoor Salman Khan’s paintings are the smallest in size, where a velvety red meets a cool forest in snatches of a rather… foreboding sort of peace in nature. Stand very, very close. They leave a lot to the imagination, whether you want to connect the frames or not. There’s one girl in a painting that turns her back on you in a pose that makes one wonder if she knows she’s being watched. Very stunning detail.
Some of the work at this exhibit arrests you immediately, while others you may well almost skip, but instead, do the job of squinting at them in confusion. Different kinds of rewards lie around, and not in the progressive rise to heroine kind of way. In all likelihood, these’ll leave you in a mood you’ve been kind of ignoring. There’s lots of those to find.
When: Until July 5. Mon-Sat. 11am-6pm. Sundays closed.
Where: Pristine Contemporary, C-3, A-178, Bhishma Pitamah Marg, Kotla Mubarakpur, New Delhi, Delhi 110003
Time Out tip: The Defence Colony market, known for great bars and bites, is a mere 5-minute walk away.