XII. From The Red Series

XII. From The Red Series
Cotton wicks, watercolour pencil and acrylic on paper
Image size: 11.7 in H x 8.3 in W
Frame size: 12.5 in H x 9.5 in W x 1.5 in D
Certificate of authenticity

The red series are drawings in vermillion with cotton wicks/diya baati used in prayer - from a long preoccupation of mine with gender, religion and ritual. The interference of politics and religion in women's bodies as a site has long disturbed me. In India especially, women's bodies as a site of "honour" is a concept I explore. Continued taboos around menstruation, temple entries, rapes in communal riots, hyper-sexualisation as well as supression of women's bodies, I think, is a subject that needs focus. The drawings revolve around the tagging of women as birthers and nurturers or vixens and sluts; pure and impure, mine and theirs etc. Misogyny has deep roots in India and we need to dig deep if we want to weed it out.

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Megha Joshi, born 1973, is a contemporary Indian artist. Trained as a sculptor from the Faculty of Fine Arts, MS University Baroda, India, Joshi worked as a set designer and art director for film and television for 10 years before she quit to return to her fine art practice in 2008. A large part of her practice focuses on Gender, Ritual and Religion though her uniqueness lies in her ability to express herself on various subjects, in a vast variety of media. She has worked with conventional materials such steel, fabric, bronze, rubber and most interestingly, everyday objects and materials used in Hindu ritualism. Her works are strong yet experimental, as she does not believe in forced homogeneity in artworks.

She does scale installations such as with incense sticks for The Sculpture Park Madhavendra Palace, curated by Peter Nagy and cotton wool at the Sandarbh residency, Baroda. Drawing remains a constant in her practice. She has been actively participating in shows in India and abroad and has been invited to art residencies in Budapest, Scotland, Japan and Iceland. Her work has been shown at the India Art Fair almost every year. Her solos include ‘I:Object’ and most recently “Rite of Passage”, 2022-23, held in New Delhi. Her works are in the collection of galleries, institutions and collectors in India and abroad.