CHURNING the FURNACE

The Shakti: Fair & Fierce exhibition at NGMA, New Delhi, sees women artists expressing themselves in a range of material

- Manjula Padmanabhan

Shakti: Fair &Fierce, at the National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA) in New Delhi, demands two visits. One for tasting and the second for devouring whole! With over one hundred artworks by 55 Indian women artists, thoughtfully curated by Sushma K. Bahl, with inputs from Meghna Vyas Arora of the NGMA, the show is visually arresting, heart-felt and transgressive.

'Desire', by Shanthamani Muddaiah, for instance, looks like an enormous black tongue. Thrust up at an angle, its surface covered in short charcoal sticks, it licks the whole universe with its raw energy. The charcoal echoes the raging fire that created it. We do not see the monstrous gullet from which the tongue protrudes, nor hear its roaring scream, yet we are scorched by that infinite furnace.