Anju Dodiya: ‘The creative process is a violent one’

Mumbai-based Anju Dodiya is among India’s best-known contemporary artists and a two-time nominee for the Sotheby’s Prize for contemporary art. Her latest, and 19th, solo exhibition, “Breathing on Mirrors”, currently showing at Gallery Chemould Prescott Road, Mumbai, brings together watercolour and charcoal paintings on her signature “mattresses” (made with fabric on a padded board), and digital works. A female protagonist, sometimes androgynous, dominates the paintings. Versions of this figure, depicted in strong chiaroscuro, draped in robes or tunics, have inhabited Dodiya’s frames for years. Ahead of the opening, the artist, 55, speaks about resisting gendered readings through her craft and why the creative process is essentially a violent one.

19 May 2020