Sharmi Chowdhury

A lot of your work involves dreamlike situations being played out in gardens, theatres, circuses and other public sites. What do you intend to communicate to your viewer through the characters and staging you use?
My work has a lot to do with theater and performance, but very little with dreams. Of course, there are elements and images which mimic the absurdity of dream-like situations, but it is not intentional at...

A lot of your work involves dreamlike situations being played out in gardens, theatres, circuses and other public sites. What do you intend to communicate to your viewer through the characters and staging you use?
My work has a lot to do with theater and performance, but very little with dreams. Of course, there are elements and images which mimic the absurdity of dream-like situations, but it is not intentional at the first place. I think painting is a medium through which I can express and communicate my thoughts. What I really strive for is a different way of showing or presenting my experiences. Every single character in my works is taken from life and my surroundings. There are certain modifications, changes and enhancements done to them...which bring out a particular shade of these characters, and perhaps the sensitive viewer knows how to relate to them. I value local wisdom and mundane experience much more than grand truths. I believe that acting or performance is closely related to daily life. Think about a small gathering of people and the innumerable shades that are revealed within a few minutes. Everyone seems possessed and careful enough to live up to the demands of a situation. It is like living multiple lives within a single body. These are things which I try to highlight through my works. If the idea is communicated through my works...I am satisfied.

You have worked with many different media and surfaces including silk scrolls, ceramic plates and assembled canvases. Can you tell us a little about your creative process and the forces that inspire your constant innovation?
I love working on different mediums and exploring the unique challenges that they provide me with. For example, I loved working on the ceramic platters because of the round space and the curvature of the surface. These things bring out the most challenging experiments on my part. It is another thing with the silk scrolls...I love the idea of 'unfolding'. In earlier times the messengers used to unfold the scrolls to read out or describe something...I thought it would be good to have a visual equivalent. However, I tried to avoid the frames to divide space that the scroll painters of Bengal used...I wanted to adjust my language to the scroll in my own way. Since a scroll had the opportunity to give a message, like some cinema or theaters too, I like giving my own message in my own way. I love working on small canvases because they are so self complete and neatly framed and so elastic towards newer permutations and combinations. When we see a movie or a theater, the idea of montage (in a movie) or a drop scene in between two episodes (theater) provides us with the conception of multiple frames. A careful look can tell us that these frames are complete in themselves on one hand, and on the other also contributes to a larger united whole. The moment we shift attention from the part to the whole ...we can feel a certain tension is being created in the process. I precisely bring out that tension over my canvas surface.

Though playful, you work has been described as having an important message about social and gender relationships. Can you tell us about this message? Would you term yourself a feminist painter?
I don’t want to claim myself a feminist painter. I have been brought up by my mother alone and have seen the dynamics of gender relations from a very close quarter. As a female, whatever I have gone through in my life...cannot be blamed on the society alone. We have been taught to do certain things and not to do others and many of us choose to travel in the comfortable path given right away in front of your eyes. How can we sit back and complain if we do not stand true to ourselves and be self critical when it is needed? Many of us are not courageous enough to stand on our ground in the time of crisis. Rather than ascribing to one position or the other, what is perhaps more needed is to investigate the apparatuses through which we are controlled and disciplined. It is only through those ground level assertions and voices that we would make a difference in the situation. So all I can say is while the gender relations have become the central area of investigation in my works, it is neither topical, nor does it need to subscribe to any tag. If my ideas are expressed well and they communicate with the sensitive viewer, I will be satisfied with what I am doing.

What does the future hold for Sharmi Chowdhury?
I want to experiment a lot in the near future and also reinvent or revive a number of lost areas from the past in my works.