Important Notice

Created using the ‘lost wax method’ of casting that the Dhokra and Bastar craftspeople of Central India use in their traditional metalwork, Meera Mukherjee’s bronzes reflect everyday rural and urban life in contemporary India, as well as the country’s ancient folklore and myths. “My work documents the life of the common people – fishermen, weavers, women stitching kantha, commuters in a crowded bus, labourers laying cables, carrying earth. The... Created using the ‘lost wax method’ of casting that the Dhokra and Bastar craftspeople of Central India use in their traditional metalwork, Meera Mukherjee’s bronzes reflect everyday rural and urban life in contemporary India, as well as the country’s ancient folklore and myths. “My work documents the life of the common people – fishermen, weavers, women stitching kantha, commuters in a crowded bus, labourers laying cables, carrying earth. The sculptures also relate to music, dance. I work on two basic principles. One is celebration of humanism and two, a yearning for reaching beyond the quotidian and rejoicing in freedom and liberation” (rpt. in The Margi and the Desi: Between Tradition and Modernity, Gallery Espace exhibition catalogue, 2004, p. 44).

Also a practicing cultural anthropologist, musician, writer, illustrator and social worker, Mukherjee is able to simultaneously convey abstract spirituality and the simple wonderment of a child in her sculptures. In the present lot, a depiction a village bird seller, the main subject’s arms are literally transformed into wings, each teeming with rows of exotic birds. Transcending realistic figuration to sculpt the bird seller as the children standing at his feet envision him, the artist endows this everyday scene with the magical air of a fairytale.

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