February 07, 2008

Prem Chowdhry’s paintings have a deep sense of angst in the esoteric narrative mingling myth with reality. The collective theme of her work encapsulates the place of women in South Asian society, writes Marjorie Hussain

At the JI Gallery in Karachi, visitors recently had the pleasure of meeting Dr. Prem Chowdhry, a Delhi-based painter and historian who has a very interesting, bracing personality which one would like to get to know more of.

Seen for the first time in Pakistan, Chowdhry’s work in exhibition expresses the concerns that link her work as an artist and as a social historian focused on women’s issues. In her paintings, lines and forms carved from paint with sharp tools accentuate the physical and poignant involvement she has with the subject. All 33 paintings have a deep sense of angst in the esoteric narrative mingling myth with reality.

The collective theme of the work encapsulates the place of women in society, taking women of India as example but also relating to wider issues. Incorporating symbols of nature and human forms, the subject includes the ancient tradition of parrots as story-tellers, weaving magical tales. Here Chowdhry refers to the ancient myths in which the narrators of tales were used as a means of controlling women’s sensuality by keeping them entranced at home under the spell of the stories.

In the work a variety of birds are juxtaposed with the female forms — they are companions, transient symbols of freedom, and decorative elements. One painting is inspired by the legend of two beautiful princesses whose numerous suitors, when unable to win their favour, were turned into puppets for the princesses to play with. In the painting the puppets take the form of doves.

Chowdhry is a self-taught artist, a social historian by discipline and the author of several acclaimed books, the most recent titled Contentious Marriages: Eloping Couples: Gender Caste and Patriarchy in Northern India (2007). She has been painting since an early age and mounted her first exhibition in the seventies. With maturity came an awareness of women’s issues and her painting and research work became increasingly interactive. She has ten solo exhibitions to her credit in Bombay and Delhi, using the tonal variations of black and white in an awesome painting technique.

In exhibiting in Pakistan, Chowdhry has realised a long standing ambition and besides the black and white compositions, for the first time shown a series of paintings in colour using acrylic and oil on canvas.

I found her reluctant to hold forth on her work. “The artist should not talk too much about the work,” she said, “It brings a closure to the work and detracts rather than add. I would rather the observer made a personal narrative.”

A large, vertically shaped painting titled ‘Three worlds’ is a stunning museum piece. Two thirds of the canvas is taken up by the branches, trunk and roots of a tree with myriad leaves, each intricate detail scraped out with a sharp tool. On the topmost branches birds sit and preen, stretching their wings against a pristine white background. Chowdhry explained that she first painted the black area, and then scratched out the forms and details; the last stage was the painting of white areas “since they must not overlap at any stage.”

Her method is to first draw the work in a sketch pad before transferring her vision to the canvas using oil and acrylic paints. Finally the careful removal of fine lines of paint creates the composition, a task that in this case took three months of continuous work. The idea in this particular artwork holds numerous meanings, “Perhaps political, perhaps showing power, someone encroaching on society and eating its vitals…it may have many meanings which the observer is free to decide.”

Using the concept of Radha, the dignified beauty loved by the Hindu god Krishna, the artist painted ‘Everyday Radha 1’ and ‘Everyday Radha II’, explaining that there is a touch of the divinity of Radha in everywoman, even the humble bird seller. A sequence titled ‘Radha in Brindaven’ portrays two forms gazing in opposite directions. “It was a happy time”, the artist declares, “When Radha and Krishna were united.” Yet the overall emotion in the work was melancholy, “Khrishna is destined to leave her again.”

Formerly a professorial fellow of the University Grants Commission, Dr. Prem Chowdhry gave up teaching in 1988, to go into plain research and has been doing that since then. “That’s why my output is not so much, as I give time to both disciplines; writing and attending conferences and seminars as well as painting.”

Another sequence of two powerful paintings reworks the myth of fertility rites to comment on ecology and environmental concerns. The first canvas has the figures of women who tie threads to trees praying for fertility and male progeny; the second composition has many claimants reaching for one lone fruit on a tree — even the birds object and in her words, this is what the world is heading towards.

In the colourful sequence of work there are references to plants and trees in traditional miniature art. The canvases are divided into separate units with fine lines and contrasting colours. In the background toy-like figures fashioned from folk art designs appear and in one composition, the concept of the story is supported by text that cannot be read.

Chowdhry’s thought provoking work is multi textural — with as many meanings; speaking of the here and now while referring to the past.