View the Show on our Artsy Page – Click Here

Art Heritage brings to a global audience the new mixed media works on canvas and paper by Kanchan Chander. The female form dominates her work – her mother, sister and herself, who later take on new ‘avataars’ of iconic female artists and film stars, to finally arrive at the image of the woman as a deity or a goddess in her recent suite.

Whereas Chander’s early works expressed subjugation and oppression, the works in this exhibition reveal an empowered, confident woman, one who exudes strength and positivity in the form of the Supreme Being or a Devi. In Kanchan’s compositions and use of deep, brilliant colors we are reminded of Tibetan ‘thangkas’, where a peripheral narrative and cast of characters support and uplift a central figure dominating the image.

Several works provide a stinging commentary on the plight of the modern Indian woman. In works like Incarnation of Tolerance – a title inspired by a Rabindranath Tagore poem – the urban woman bears the abuse meted out to her, while continuing with her daily chores, elevated from her bleak existence by visions of freedom in the form of a winged angel. In another work, Que Sera Sera 25, three devis rest on a crouched figure. Two of them are in meditative stances attempting to contain and still their responses, while a third towers above the rest, the fire of rebellion emanating from her body.

Drawing on a vast pantheon of iconic images of women as depicted in popular mediums like cinema and now from religious iconography as depicted in popular culture like calendar art, Kanchan succeeds in objectifying the personal allowing it to flow, like a river, into a larger public consciousness.

As the daughter of a diplomat, one of the ways Kanchan found to adjust to constant change, was to become adaptable. “I’m like a river,” says Kanchan, “as I move forward towards the open sea, I take in and discard from that which is around me”.

In addition to viewing the works online, individual works can be viewed in person at Art Heritage (by appointment).

Date

4 Dec - 15 Jan 2021

Artists

Kanchan Chander

Medium

Mixed Medium