Veteran sculptor Mrinalini Mukherjee showcases her new bronze sculptures at Gallery Espace
a solo exhibition of 30 bronze sculptures in small, medium and large size
Tweet-- First there was natural fibre, then ceramic and now veteran sculptor Mrinalini Mukherjee showcases thirty bronze sculptures in small, medium and large scale size in her upcoming solo exhibition titled 'LAVA' from April 15, 2010 to May 15, 2010 at Gallery Espace, 16, Community Centre, New Friends Colony, New Delhi.
Says Renu Modi (Director, Gallery Espace): "Mrinalini Mukherjee's work relate inevitably to her Indian origins and experiences, the affinities with the wonderful craft practices of our country, the spontaneous dialogue between high art and vernacular sources, the interferences between the erotic and the sacred, the sensuality in relation to the lushness of nature, the chromatic atmosphere at once muted and glowing as well as the mixture of fear and enchantment that her large hieratic figures unavoidably trigger or translate."
Says Mrinalini Mukherjee: "My anthropomorphic deities owe much to the equation with awe and reverence that a traditional invocatory deity inspires in her spectator. But, my mythology is de-conventionalized as are my methods and materials."
French critic/writer Henry-Claude Cousseau says: "I saw Mrinalini Mukherjee's work for the first time in 1982 at the 5th Triennial in New Delhi, before meeting her a short time later. But I especially remember having encountered her by chance in 1994 on a visit to Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Wakefield, where she was a guest artist in the framework of activities of the Henry Moore foundation. She was working on her impressive monumental sculptures in colored hemp fiber, at once anthropomorphic and vegetal in inspiration and exploring the possibilities of casting them in bronze."
Inspired by nature, its energies and elements, Mrinalini Mukherjee intricately works with materials like wax, rope, clay and metal. Through the procedure of weaving, firing and casting; she forms spirals, loops and hollows which give the sculptures a heavy vegetal drape or in other words voluptuously enveloping curves. The strong note of sexuality is manifest in the phallic forms, the mysterious folds and orifices, the quality of textures and surface, the subtle play of light and shadow, the gleam of the patinas, the viscosity of the varnishes, the iridescent sharpness of the metal chasing, the muted tones of the colored dyes as well as the intricate curves and drapes. There is a sensuous, tactile quality to her work which exercises a compelling hold on the viewer.
Hence, the bronze pieces in the current show disclose the presence of an object at their center that resembles a pot at times, a wineskin at others - rounded like a colocynth with its scapes, its leaves and its stems. The leaves grow and spread around the axis of her works as if under the effect of a breath, under the impact of an irresistible force. The object that opens and blossoms before our eyes literally emerges from its womb, and in so doing, shows all the signs of its effort to come to light: the jagged, scalloped, serrated, random, indecisive, hesitant motifs, like so many caprices that might pass for natural laws. The body merges with the foliage and is thereby concealed from the eyes of mortals, like the gods or the woodland spirits in certain ancient cultures.
The connection she establishes between plant and body irresistibly calls to mind the myth of Daphne, the nymph loved and relentlessly chased by Apollo, transformed by her father into a laurel to save her from the deity's perseverant passion.
Born in 1949, Mumbai, Mrinalini Mukherjee is the daughter of renowned artists Benode Behari and Leela Mukherjee. She studied Painting at the Faculty of Fine Art, M.S. University, Baroda (1965-1970), and then studied mural design under artists like K.G. Subramanyan, receiving a Post-Diploma in the field in 1970. She lives and works in New Delhi.