The feminist artist
Gogi Saroj Pal looks back at the woman she has painted over the last four decades
A thin flower-laden cloth drapes her curves as her hair is left open to flutter in the breeze, her gaze suggests placidity and deep thoughts. What would she be thinking? After all, it has been 41 years—and from a puckish winged female figure to a nude nayika or yogini, even a bovine figurine, Gogi Saroj Pal’s protagonist has covered a long distance.
The New Delhi-based artist has been painting the female form for more than 50 years now. Her art concentrates on her protagonists’ lives, be it their inner conflicts or their fight with a male-dominated society.
The label of being a “feminist" was bestowed on her much before the term came into prominence. “My woman of 1973 was much more vulnerable and shy than Nirbhaya, which I painted in 2014," says the 69-year-old artist. “Nirbhaya even has a sickle."
In her exhibition Gogi Saroj Pal—A Retrospective, now on at the Pathways Art Gallery at Pathways School in Gurgaon, Haryana, the artist looks back at her work from 1973 till now. “The idea of having my exhibition in a school is to make children comfortable with the idea of art and the artists, and at the same time sensitize them about issues that women face in our country," says Pal.
The 40 paintings and eight sculptures give a glimpse of Pal’s vast oeuvre. There are works from her past series Kamdhenu, where she has shown a woman as half-human and half-cow, and some from her series Kinnari, which was on similar lines. “We have Kamdhenu, a wish-fulfilling cow in our mythology, but what about the cow’s wish? The same logic goes for a woman," says Pal. “I wanted to give Indian mythology some new nayikas and figurines to introspect," she explains.
The exhibition also features her series All These Flowers Are For You, where she has painted female figures on printed fabric. The idea, according to her, is to give “due" recognition to our textiles and their makers. “You know, Indian fabrics have been used since the time of Egyptian mummies, yet we don’t know who makes them and how they are made," says Pal.
Her recent works include the Nirbhaya series, inspired by the 2012 Delhi gang-rape case. In this series, she has shown an angry woman with sickles. The eyes are wider and the undertones of the works are much darker.
“Our mythology is crooked and so is our mentality," says Pal. “As we celebrate Navratra, we also kill a girl child, and as we worship goddesses for money, we continue to rape our women."
Pal hopes to send out a message of hope to the children of the Pathways School: “to never give up even if it’s immensely challenging". “That’s why I have displayed all my old artworks along with the new ones—to inspire art and freedom."
The Gogi Saroj Pal—A Retrospective is on till 26 November, 11am-7pm, at Pathways Art Gallery, Pathways School, off Gurgaon-Faridabad Road, Baliawas, Gurgaon, Haryana. The starting price of works is ₹ 2 lakh.
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