Parallel Lives – A Project by Dipali Bhattacharya – the current exhibition paintings, sculptural works, scrolls and videos at the Kalakriti Art Gallery document the artists’ works where the personal and the political intersect and blend seamlessly
Dipali Bhattacharya’s works on display at the gallery till August 2 are immediately accessible visual vocabulary of the personal: history is paraphrased through objects drawn from personal life, interpersonal relationships are expressed through photographs from family albums, beauty and vulnerability expressed through a flock of birds in flight. These are parallel tales of feminine strength: of survival even in the most difficult and trying of circumstances. Liberation and equality lie at the heart of this body of work. These ‘Parallel Lives’ are about the personal and political, conformity and revolt, the outwardly decorative and inwardly subversive. All, however, are pregnant with significance and meaning.
In these visually striking works, Bhattacharya speaks at multiple and diverse levels to her audience. An understanding of her social activism and concerns, nonetheless, is crucial to understanding their true import. Certain themes – the role of the woman in the family, domestic spaces, the fight for social justice and equality – recur, as do wider themes of colonialism, feminism and gender politics.
Bhattacharya keeps history and politics at the centre of her work where the historical – old buildings, objects and photographs to name a few – and the political – the struggles of the women of Sholo Bighe, a distressed area outside Calcutta – become accessible through the transformative medium of human relationships. Words such as ‘Hope’, ‘Flight’ and ‘Desire’ scattered across the scrolls on display express complex political and ideological ideas.
In the stories of these ‘parallel lives’ we encounter subjects who invite the viewer into their worlds of Calcutta mansions, Miss Havisham-like interiors and idyllic landscapes. All these protagonists though, can reinvent their stories for each telling. Is the matriarch wearing beautiful traditional clothes and jewellery someone who yearns for a different life? Is the woman with the vacant expression thinking back to happier times as disembodied hands tug at her and what appears to be a shadow of herself looks on while white wasps speak eloquently of mortality? Does the young woman in Arcadian surroundings hide some deep and dark secret? All these characters help build up a narrative, freely interpreting existing ones and delighting in the telling and retelling.
Bhattacharya has always identified with the least, not the mighty, engaging with disadvantaged sections of society and finding beauty and drawing inspiration from their lives. She confronts, even celebrates, the powers emanating from this quarter: hers are not simplistic tales of victims and oppressors, but a constant celebration of finding hope in adversity. he surprises the viewer with the unexxpected. These
are not images of desperation. instead they demonstrate a sympathy with naivete , a love of challenges, the weaknesses, force and strengths of those at the very margins of society.
Dipali Bhattacharya is a narrator through images; she defies the condescension in which illustrative work and photographic references are held; as a woman artist she does not equivocate about the intimacies of women’s lives for good and ill. Hers is a fearless psychological exploration which draws attention to the representation of women’s concerns, fantasies, drives and lives, both as subjects and as makers.
These works exude a great thirst for life. They are brimming with curiosity and generosity. Most of all they convey a rare sensibility, a most potent imagination, a beguiling and unique aesthetic. These are the works of a true original, a magnificent artist.