An artistic practice that defies genre

Prabhavathi Meppayil's solo show at Jhaveri highlights meditative works that play with sculptural mark-making

- Anindo Sen

Coinciding with the recently held Art Mumbai, Jhaveri Contemporary opened Prabhavathi Meppayil's eponymous first solo exhibition in Mumbai after 17 years. While Bengaluru-based Meppayil has kept a relatively low profile in her own country, she has been making waves internationally over the years. She was the only Indian artist to be represented at the 2013 Venice Biennale at its centrally curated pavilion. In 2016, she was part of the group exhibition, Accrochage, at the Punta Della Dogana in the same city alongside other contemporary artists like Tacita Dean, Philippe Parreno and Pierre Huyghe. She also exhibited at Kochi Biennale that year, followed by the Yokohama Triennale in 2017, Sydney Biennale in 2018 and the Dhaka Art Summit in 2020. She also had two celebrated exhibitions with Pace Gallery in London in 2014 and New York in 2022, and with Esther Schipper Gallery in Berlin in 2018.

Her initial inspiration stemmed from wall paintings, ranging from the Shekhawati murals in Rajasthan to the frescoes at the Ajanta Caves in Aurangabad. She trained with mural artists to learn the technique. Eventually she moved on to gesso (a primer which she uses as paint), which turned out to be a completely different medium with its own set of challenges. More profoundly, her family heritage in goldsmithing informs her practice in myriad ways.