Reena's 2nd solo show 'Skin' shown at Gallery Chemould, Bombay and Vis-a-Vis, Art Inc., New Delhi. 2000-2001

Artist Statement

The works included here, were part of an exhibition titled 'Skin' that comprised of paintings on canvas and paper, a sculptural assemblage and a suite of photographs. The central motif of the bread house/monument holds within it the twin metaphors of food and shelter even as its framework is modeled after the playful card houses made by children. The triangular uniformity of the tent house/ shelter lends an anonymous quality to these structures characteristic of urban stereotypes. The mock-iconicity gives them the aura of monuments; however any attempt at memorializing is counterpoised by the choice of bread as perishable building blocks.

One of the works in the show, 'Skin' titled, 'Tent-Cities (20 Illuminated Manuals)' (image I005) comprises of ten pairs of hands arranged on a wall collectively echoing the triangular pyramid formation seen in much of the works. Each pair is held out, as if in a gesture of offering or receiving at the same time. Like an open book in a library of documents, the translites invite viewers to peer into the open palms playing the role of a palmist reading into peoples lives, their destinies, fates and fortunes. The photographic records follow a sequence, where the hands on the left carry images of the bread house in wax melting down while the ones on the right are seen building up. The combustible nature of wax candles lend an ambivalence to the light/flame which at one level attempts to reveal things and yet at another, burns them away.

CATALOGUE ESSAY - 'Skin'

The following is a dialogue between the artist (RS) and her husband, Jitish Kallat (JK), also a reputed artist and a freelance writer.

Dialogue-II
It s 27th August, a little more than a month before these works get publicly shown and I thought it would be useful to include my voice in the catalogue. My general discomfort of outlining a recent body of work with an artist statement pushed me to conceive this in the manner of a dialogue. Instead of our usual informal discussions in the studio I decided to exchange observations with Jitish about the making of the exhibition and record it in this document.

JK: Reena, lets begin with the title and the format of the show. You've chosen a deceptively simple title 'Skin' . It doesn't say much but seems to murmur. How did this title come to you?

RSK: The title is used to wrap up the show, to seal the recent body of work. I first thought of it while I was working on the three dyptichs titled, 'Transmigration (A Travelogue)', (I006) where certain objects were chosen and altered by the act of painting. In one of the pictures with a girl wearing a hairpin, the rose shaped clip in the larger frame is enveloped in leopard skin, which I think breathes new life into an otherwise inanimate hairpin.

And that kind of sparked off the idea. Later I decided to retain it since skin suggests both a basic protective covering as well as the more cosmetic aspect of surface appearance. In the exhibition I work around ideas of the basics of food and shelter often contrasted with material excesses.

JK: A strange collision of privations and plenty does seem to happen in 'Bred Minar' where an androgynous fashion freak dressed in a high fashion garment poses stupidly (although looking majestic) in front of a bread-tower candle placed like a house of cards. The knives that frame his majesty threaten his existence but he is oblivious about it. The bread house is an excellent metaphor for food and shelter as basic necessities of life. When it burns like a candle we have an evocation of fuel and light. All packed in one Bred Minar .( Image I001)

RSK: Yes, there is a breakdown of boundaries between the real and the unreal. What you're perhaps referring to is the apparent incongruity of the borrowed image from the invented one.

JK: No, I was thinking about how the apparent absurdity has an underlying, almost poetic evocation. Yet as a picture it is set in an unknown space having the quality of a set design in a surreal play. While each image is perfectly normal they create a lot of friction when they interact within a single painting. Is this friction a necessary agent in the creation of
meaning?

RSK: Well, certainly not in the creation of all meaning. In 'Bred Mina'r I m thinking of an altar in a shrine, whereas in case of the work titled 'Bridge' the sense of threat is heightened because of the tenuousness of the strings. The tricky placement of the bread houses becomes a reminder of the tight-roped life in the city.

JK: I like the way the imagery connects with the idea of the city. 'Bridge' (Image I002) is also a space of transit. You don t build a house on it unless it is a makeshift refuge; the home of a gypsy whose residence is an automobile. One thinks of the numerous squatters in the city. The formal arrangement of 'Bridge' is also interesting because the two nurturing hands that bracket the house of bread at once appear handcuffed which in turn evokes an image of confinement.

RSK: Strangely I first thought of titling it Arrested Development. What came as a natural corollary to this work was the image of a person carrying bread houses on the back called 'Gastropode Mollusc' . And this fragile house structure in motion, is then set against a landscape of solidly grounded pyramids. You'll see once I've completed it. (Image- I003)

JK: The house has anyway been a recurring motif in your last show 'Orchard of home grown secrets' .

RSK: Yes, the house was most prominent there in the work called 'Joint Family'.1998. It was conceived such that one large umbrella house contained within it two smaller ones, whose nucleus was marked by a pair of copulating snakes (a symbol of fertility). Also in the show were fragile houses of painted cards, which in the recent body of work take a new dimension as the cards get replaced by slices of bread.

JK: I know for sure that there isn't a hint of autobiography in 'Joint family'. You never lived in one. You've lived a stable and comfortable life in Bombay and never had to carry your home around like 'Gastropode Mollusc' . How do these images come to you? Whose joint family are you referring to and who is 'Gastropode Mollusc' ?

RSK: Most of my images are conceived on a sketchbook and they are never specifically about me. The same goes for 'Joint Family' and 'Gastropode Mollus'c . With 'Joint family', I began with thoughts on a family I actually knew. But the work just seemed to be about something else when I completed it. If the green inside was used to mark off the domestic space, the outer walls covered with creepers hugging at it from all sides had multiple images of the outside world. I was moving from the home, to the city, to the world. 'Gastropode Mollusc' was conceived out of the image of a snail.

JK: The tiny invertebrate with its soft body carries its hard shell/shelter wherever it goes, like any human being carrying his or her own little room to recede into. The large slices of bread that frame the picture in extreme close up induce a sense of claustrophobia that then forces the eye to escape into the eerie landscape forming the center of the picture.

RSK: Similarly in the assemblage of sculptures titled 'Tent Cities (20 Illuminated Manuals)' in the center of each hand is a backlit photograph. I would like to make the viewer play the role of a palmist scanning through the pyramid of ten pairs of hands. Each pair is held together like an open book, which the viewer is then invited to read/look into. The hands on the right carry the sequential building up of the bread houses, while the ones on the left showcase the burning down of bread slices dipped in wax. I was thinking about the wax dolls and other objects found outside churches. They are meant for a ritual offering to attain what one desires. It is from the sacrificial burning of the wax house that the bread tower is resurrected. I like to think that one gains through the experience of loss.

JK: I was thinking about the key difference between 'Tent Cities' and a work like 'Transmigration (A Travelogue)' or 'Moss Garden'. There is something indescribable about seeing a rose, an archetypal symbol of love and beauty, draped in the skin of a carnivore or seeing a family portrait framed on a slice of bread within a ring of moss. By contrast, don t you think the logic of 'Tent Cities' is tangible and very easily available? (Image I004)

RSK: I don't think so. You probably say this because the work has been with me for the longest duration of time and you've heard the logic of its execution, more than once. There is however, quite clearly, a good deal of difference in the way they were conceived.

'Tent Cities' is more immediate because the photographs are a direct record of the bread monuments. But they refer to life in much the same way as the paintings do.

JK: What comes after this?

RSK: Newer ideas are already taking shape in the sketchbook. So I'll just have to chase and realize them.