Not sure that a disclaimer as such is really needed, just because I’m privileged to count a talented woman like Neena Nehru as a friend, but anyway here goes – the exhibition I’m going to review now is that of a friend, who also happens to be both an accomplished artist and also a poet.
In her exhibition at Delhi’s India Habitat Centre, Neena has juxtaposed some of her poems alongside her striking paintings, telling stories of lives that are fractured and distorted by life, by man-made conflicts, by “tectonic plates of conflicting values.” There is no way the visitor can ignore Ms Nehru’s message, because she presents it boldly and strikingly. We are all leading lives fractured to a greater or lesser extent:
The artist is fascinated by faces, and constantly re-interprets them:
Some of her faces, like the one below, have an echo of Gaugin:
There are some striking series of paintings, which stand alone as individual statements, but are that much stronger when viewed as a collective, such as this series entitled “Adam”:
Ms Nehru can be brutally honest at times, as in this hard hitting poem, which must surely resonate with every single one of us who has switched off a programme or a news item that was too disturbing:
The artist makes valid visual points about how women are viewed in society:
Be sure to study and enjoy the brightly coloured installations in the centre of the gallery. The one below is entitled “Game of Cards” and portrays the different cards in life dealt to a woman, and how she plays them :
And then there is this intriguing moveable installation called “Revolving Roles”:
The exhibition is on until this weekend, so why not go and mark International Women’s Day by viewing the work of an intelligent, thoughtful woman who has her own very striking take on life?
