‘Intimate Lives’, an exhibition just concluded at Mumbai’s Tao Art Gallery, hosted works by promising female artists.

A collection by eight leading artists, it incorporated works by Simrin Mehra Aggarwal, Paula Sengupta, Sarika Mehta, Ayisha Abraham, Dhruvi Acharya, Mithu Sen, Vidya Kamat and Tanujaa Rane Hambardikar in multimedia format. The oeuvre showcased had drawings, paintings, photographs as well as interesting installations. Alongside each of the artist’s work, a sketch diary plus a pillow case worked on by them was put up.

One of the participating artists, Dhruvi Acharya, expressed a woman’s anticipation while preparing to meet ‘a guy of her dreams’, the growing familiarity and pain of a failed relationship. Her watercolor paintings did not follow any linear narrative. They only dealt with the emotional aspect of a woman’s intimately personal life.  Her watercolors portrayed the dilemma of a middle aged woman and brought out her imperfections.

New Delhi-based artist Simrin Mehra Aggarwal had divided a man’s face into different machine parts or those similar to mechanisms of a hand-wound watch. On closer inspection of her acrylic on canvas, personal and mechanical motifs as well as ancient symbols came to the fore. She had also worked on a hybrid human form. It had branches emerging from the human head, suggesting a person’s transforming character.

With its unabashed and frank disclosures, the show reversed existing notions of privacy. It came across as a candid discussion on ‘intimate’ art practice related to gender issues and the fragile feminine self.

According to curator Anupa Menta, the exhibit was a celebration of the sadness and joy accompanying emotions invariably linked with the cyclical ideas of love, loss and longing. It explored amorous desire, ennui, eroticism, and the resultant poetic image within the intriguing realm of artistic practice.