An ode to womanhood

Human form — especially the feminine one — has delighted, tickled, and enchanted artists, poets, and performers since time immemorial. For a creative artist, the female form opens up innumerable opportunities for depiction and interpretation, even as it throws up challenges.The Indian woman, in particular, with her multi-faceted personality, character, and identity, is a picture of many faces. Even to grasp a fraction of her moods, feelings, and meandering and to showcase them in an art show is in itself a tall order, and any effort to do so needs to be lauded.An exclusive exhibition of paintings and drawings at the Lalit Kala Akademi treaded on this difficult yet lively path in an attempt to create innovative ways to look at, comprehend, admire, and appreciate facets of Indian womanhood — as seen through the eyes of woman painter Helen Brahma. The week-long show that concluded on Thursday showcased 18 of her recent works -- eight drawings in water colour and 10 paintings -- most of which revolve round womanhood.Describing her paintings as a combination of abstract and figurative works, Helen said she concentrated on womanhood to highlight a woman’s feelings through her paintings. None of the paintings were based on a particular theme and she used objects to highlight its relation to the day-to-day life of a woman, both married and working.To highlight a married woman’s role in managing her family, Helen created a series ‘Family Package’ comprising three paintings of a strolley bag, a toy gun and a television set. All the three paintings have been coloured on the theme of cloth patterns. “I have used cloth patterns in each of my drawing because I and my children are associated with them all the time. These paintings mostly depict the toys, dresses and entertainment in day to day life of children and the efforts of their mother in bringing them up. In a way, the three paintings signify day-to-day activities in the life of a wife and a mother,” said Helen, the mother of two. While she highlights the objects of her paintings on a large-scale in the canvas, she drew miniature icons in the background to support her idea. “The tremendous effort that a housewife puts in for maintaining her family is never appreciated by anyone, whereas people pay more attention to a working woman. My effort is to show that even a housewife has an identity of her own,” she said.The cloth patterns seem to be an extension of her 64 Yogini series where she drew the Yoginis on Tussar sarees to bring out the element of womanhood in them.Her four-painting series, Insects, was particularly eye-catching. She drew the silk worms clad in beautiful saree patterns to represent the women who wear these handloom sarees. “The silk worms are never an object of desire for anyone but the sarees that are woven out from the thread that is generated through these insects is certainly something everyone wants. Here too, I tried to draw a parallel between a working woman and a housewife,” she said.The painter drew silk-worms as women wearing the handloom saris made out of their silk and added elements like Orchid flowers to represent feminity and beauty.The thread of commonality running through all the paintings is her wonderful sense of colour juxtaposition. She uses bright colours to depict the underlying happiness in being a woman. “The show was a premier to the main exhibition of my paintings that will be hosted in New Delhi next year,” she said.