ALTERBODIES: Exhibition of recent works by Sajitha Shankar

ALTERBODIES

Exhibition of recent works by Sajitha Shankar

6 – 20 June 2013

@ Art Gallery, Alliance Française de Trivandrum

Kind attention: Bureau Chief

Alliance Française de Trivandrum is pleased to present ALTERBODIES: a solo exhibition of recent works by Sajitha Shankar 6 – 20 June 2013 at Art Gallery, Alliance Française de Trivandrum.

The exhibition will be inaugurated by Dr. Shashi Tharoor, Hon. Minister for Human Resource Development, Govt. of India at 5.00pm @ Art gallery, Alliance Française de Trivandrum.

Sajitha Shankar’s new series, ‘alterbodies‘ is the product of years of evolution and gradual exploration, starting from her vibrant charcoal portraits ,particularly of women, her sketches and etchings done at times for works of poetry, her autobiographical works that reveal the power of the feminine as a natural force and often that quarrel with the dominantly patriarchal world to her series of archetypal paintings and drawings that often emerge from myths to address our collective memory and reflect the mystery of the feminine as mother, nature and as creativity itself.

These paintings look at the alternative possibilities of the body, its playful metamorphoses into what it is not, its reaching out to new destinies. The scope of the biological body thus gets enlarged -even biologically enhanced as some works in the series show – through an unnatural ordering of the organs and an unnatural employment of colours and lines, creating an alternative biology or counter-biology

About the artist

Sajitha Shankar received her BFAdegree from the Govt. College of Arts, Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, after which, she worked at the Regional Centre Studios of the Lalit Kala Akademi in Chennai. Later, she lived and worked at the Cholamandal Artists’ Village for sixteen years. She was a member of the Lalit Kala Akademi, Kerala for nine years, from 2002 to 2011. She is the founder-director of an innovative centre for art, the Gowri Art Institute at Kallar in Kerala. Currently, she works at the Garhi

Studios of the Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi.

Sajitha Shankar has held 28 solo shows of her works in many cities in lndia and abroad and her works are kept in several prestigious galleries. Her honours include the Charles Wallace Award from the British Council, Senior Fellowship from the Dept. of Culture, Govt. of lndia (2009-2011), French Scholarship for Artist’s Residency in Paris (2006-2007), Senior Award at the special exhibition to celebrate the Golden Jubilee of Indian Independence held in Tamil Nadu (1997), Grand Prize at the

Cleveland International Drawing Biennale, UK (1995), Kerala Lalit Kala Akademi Award and Lion’s Club Award. She was one of the fourteen leading women artists felicitated by the National Legal

Service Authority, New Delhi on International Women’s Day, 8th March, 2008.