Rekha Rodwittiya’s solo exhibition at Sakshi Gallery, Mumbai, Rekha@Sixty: Transient Worlds of Belonging celebrates the artist’s 60th birthday through a new body of work that looks back on a physical and spiritual journey across six decades.
As one of the pioneering artists of her generation, the Baroda based artist’s work has served as an important voice for the feminist movement in India. Through her distinct and instantly identifiable imagery, Rekha’s works explore ideas of womanhood and questions patriarchal systems. Along with an impressive sixty piece series of paperworks, the show will also have a series of hitherto unseen multimedia works.
Whilst celebrating a personal milestone for Rekha, the exhibition is also a testament to the nurturing and enduring relationship between the gallery and artist. Having had a solo exhibition at the gallery to celebrate her 50th birthday, this show fell into place as yet another landmark to celebrate the artist’s prolific career. The exhibition looks back on another decade through a new body of work that invites the viewer into the world of Rekha’s unique imagery that stems from her responses to everyday events around her as well as her politically astute reading of world-events. Like much of Rekha’s past work, these works carry her authentic experience of life where the personal and the political are intricately intertwined to create richly layered stories and allegorical images.
“Images from everyday life that inhabit my work are always subtexts that act as indicators to reveal the territory of more detailed enquiries. The objects I use establish my relationship with the world at large, and in particular. They are often possessions that I own, from which I extract metaphors and formulate a personalized symbology.” – Rekha Rodwittiya
ABOUT REKHA RODWITTIYA
Born in Bangalore in 1958, Rekha Rodwittiya completed her graduation from The Faculty of Fine Arts, M.S. University, Baroda in 1981. She received the Inlaks scholarship for her M.A. in Painting from Royal College of Art, London in 1984. In 1988 she was invited as guest artist to the Konsthogskolan, Stockholm. She was also invited to deliver series of lectures on Indian Art at the Ecole des Beaux Arts, Grenoble and Castello di Rivoli, Torino in 1991. Rekha did a short stint at the Fullam Institute on Film and Video, and was conferred the Rockefeller Foundation Asian Cultural Council Staff Fellowship to work in the U.S. in 1990.
In 1995, Rekha was invited to create work for an exhibition in Geneva to commemorate 50 years of the United Nations for which she created a seminal work titled Songs From the Blood of the Weary. This work was most recently exhibited in a solo show of the same titled at the Jehangir Nicholson Art Foundation, Mumbai.
ABOUT SAKSHI GALLERY
Sakshi Gallery is one of the premier galleries of India. It has, since its establishment in 1984, endeavored to develop a strong program, working closely with important artists as well as introducing many emerging ones. It has shown works of many of India’s leading artists like M. F. Husain, K. G. Subramanyan, F.N. Souza, Manjit Bawa, Nalini Malani, Bhupen Khakhar, Jehangir Sabavala and others. It has also regularly exhibited the works of Surendran Nair, Rekha Rodwittiya, Valay Shende, Chintan Upadhayay, N. S. Harsha and many other contemporary artists. Recently the exhibition program has expanded to include such international names as Gregory Crewdson, Julian Opie, El Anatsui, and artists from different parts of the world.