Anju Dodiya

Acquired from Gallery Chemould, Mumbai

Mumbai, Gallery Chemould, One Upon a Time and A Story was Born, 13 - 30 September 2000

One Upon a Time and A Story was Born, Gallery Chemould, Mumbai, 2000, unpaginated, illus.

Good overall condition. Slight overall undulation in paper.
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Frida

A queen in Mexico I knew
Many pictures of herself she drew.
She was a longhaired painter queen
Married to a fat artist king.

The king painted on very large walls,
Marching busily to the people's call.

The queen was proud and strong but sick
She longed for a baby - that never did arrive
But while longing and dreaming, Her painting did thrive.

She made colourful magic in pictures quite small!
Her brush was a wand, her own story her song.
Sitting in a wheelchair, lying down on her bed
Will you believe she painted till she was dead!

She painted her own head, again and again
In beads, in lace, in gowns with a crown,
In tears, in fears, cut open with garden shears.

Red wounds, red fruit, red light of the sun.
They said of her (which is true)
She was a satin ribbon wrapped around a bomb!

Anju Dodiya
(One Upon a Time, and A Story was Born...Gallery Chemould, Mumbai, 2000)

Anju Dodiya uses representations of her self or alter egos to address feelings of fear, anxiety and self doubt. Watercolour is her primary medium which she has mastered to great effect. Inspired by Japanese ukiyo-e prints Dodiya uses delicate washes contrasted by strong lyrical lines. Throughout her career Dodiya has depicted herself in different guises that draw on art historical, cinematic and literary sources. This painting is inspired by a photograph of the celebrated Mexican artists Frida Kahlo and her husband Diego Rivera taken in 1931. In the upper section of Dodiya's painting she has added a ribboned banner that appears in the top right hand corner of a painting Kahlo painted in the same year as the photograph. As with Dodiya the majority of Kahlo's works were self-portraits. In this painting there is a striking similarity between the facial features of Frida and Dodiya and one could almost interpret Frida's portrait being that of Dodiya. Dodiya wrote a poem to accompany the painting that indicates her admiration and affection for the artist. Like Kahlo one of Dodiya's primary concerns is with her role as an artist in society. There are a number of parallels one can draw between the two artists' circumstances. They are both married to artists, Frida to Diego Rivera and Anju to Atul Dodiya. Throughout her life Frida suffered from bad health and went through great physical and emotional pain to create her art. Dodiya's sufferings both physical and metaphorical, serve as a spiritual connection to her artistic predecessor.