Rekha Rodwittiya
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REKHA RODWITTIYA The Rituals of Memory: Personal Folklores & Other Tales REKHA RODWITTIYA / The Rituals of Memory: Personal Folklores & Other Tales February 4–27, 2016 2 Title TK, Info TK Cover: Rekha @ 50 (Blue), 2008, Acrylic and oil on canvas, 84 x 60 in. 3 4 Rekha Rodwittiya, (Installation View), 2016, Aicon Gallery, New York 5 The Rituals of Memory: Personal Folklores & Other Tales Sequencing time: A monologue of a personal history pieced together in reverie Left: Don’t Rock the Boat, 1985, Watercolor and gouache on paper, 15 x 11 in.; Center: The Cloaked Night, 1985, Ink and gouache on paper, 15 x 11 in.; Right: The Acrobat, 1985, Ink, colored pencil, gouache and graphite pencil on paper, 30 x 22 in. Rekha Rodwittiya Baroda 2016 I hold a universe in my hands. EARLY YEARS AS A CHILD My upbringing has been non-conformist ENTERING ART COLLEGE IN 1976 LeARNING AT THE FACULTY OF FINE The privilege of receiving an education and without a singular ethnic community In tracing my evolution as an artist, I ARTS, M.S. UNIVERSITY OF BARODA The maps of these memories in a country where the disempowered being an influencing factor. My parents have always maintained that what has The preparatory foundation course filter journeys that bring to light struggle for basic survival impacted came from backgrounds where western been seminal in shaping my articulation was mandatory and was aimed at new discoveries to behold, itself on me from a very young age as classical music and literature were was the years of study undertaken at providing a holistic overview of art in that lead me closer to the well being something never to be taken studied, and so we grew in the shadow the time I was an art student. I studied which painting, printmaking, sculpture, of my heart. for granted. This, coupled with being of their interests. I also grew up isolated, painting under the principal guidance pottery, applied arts, art history a much-desired girl-child, prompted as I was home-schooled until I was of Jyoti Bhatt and Nasreen Mohamedi and aesthetics was taught. Studio To search for comfort alone will me to distinguish for myself a context seven years old. In those early years of when I was a student at Baroda, and it is practice offered lessons in skills of surely obscure the true nature of accountability. I believe that I have my childhood I lived mostly on remote from them that I learnt about the value of two-dimensional representations, of life’s complexities, carried the legacies of a female history air-force bases with my immediate ethics and the correlation of a personal perspective, three-dimensional forms, and so the doors of myriad with a conscious alertness, which led family as my only social companions. politics offering a deeper insight into design, colour coordination, balance me very early in my personal journey This seclusion led me to find an knowing oneself more astutely. and harmony, and perhaps most experiences are always left ajar, importantly initiated the process of to a space of belonging where the imagination that became my escape It was those initial years of imposed to let the flow of energies come learning how to conceptualize. Teaching bedrock of my feminist beliefs could into a larger world of belonging. insistence to comply with a structured and go at will. strategies emphasized communication take root. Though we are all individuals, From the age of five I knew I wanted methodology of imbibing the rudimentary as a means to provoke enquiry, and Fertile and fecund, I bear the we nonetheless belong within larger to be an artist. I remained with this basics of art, which provided me a without the gizmos of new technology collective responsibilities of existence. fervent desire throughout my childhood rock-solid plinth from which to craft fruits of my mother’s garden and the world of internet connectivity, This dual space we inhabit, of the and teenage years. Perhaps this was my pictorial language, and to take it in the pride of a female the methods of discovering information personal and the collective, becomes because I spent many hours drawing through different ideational explorations ancestry. were through independent research important to examine when seeking to and painting and it became a space of over the years. However irksome these and reading. The library and the archives understand what conjoins and what great solace and release for me where conventional procedures sometimes became places where answers were separates them, and whether both I could give form to the realm of the appeared, they helped provide me with sought and more questions arose; these territories can hold the imprint imagined. I lived in different cities a fluency in areas of observation and and this perpetuated a rhythm of of our purposefulness with equal vigour. of India during the early part of my translation. I was also exposed to the self-motivated learning. childhood till we arrived as a family in powerful combination of imbibing aspects Baroda in 1967, where after a series of art from both the traditional as well as In those days the teaching was more of circumstances this city became my deciphering the challenges of an evolving structured than it appears today, and permanent home and remains so to date. modernity, which then set the stage for perhaps more importantly there was me to engage in examining how to locate no interference of market forces and my personal history within the larger other external commercial influences framework of a cultural context. to sidetrack or confuse the process 6 7 of learning. The expectancies of phenomena. Classroom instructions traditional crafts people, and of course image-making and folk traditions of art designs for these performances. The language that employed episodic narrative the teachers for students to deliver were reinforced through seminars, field the legendary Fine Arts Fair. practice, which came from his personal synergy of activity created a mela devices was used. The figure became the deep interest in archiving performative environment. It was also a learning ground central leitmotif within the discourse on work of quality were unapologetically trips, study tours to monuments, heritage The presence of stalwart artists like rituals and the lifestyles of rural India. where the students were exposed to human predicament, which was recorded stringent. Though intellectual dissent sites and museums visits, making oral Jeram Patel from the 1890 group, who This was very instructive for many the commerce of art, as well as being through the filter of personal was encouraged, the overall climate instructions bring history to life. headed the applied arts department, students, whose naïve ignorance often introduced to lessons of collaboration histories mythologized. of the faculty focused on nurturing The faculty encouraged artists and provided the college an atmosphere led them to imagine contemporary where the role of the individual as the the application of studio practices scholars to visit, and interactions with that was radical and experimental. culture to be represented only by what sole creator becomes altered. COMING OF AGE and creating an engagement with the them often occurred in alternative Gulammohammed Sheikh and Ratan was seen in urban India. It was under I have always been an advocate of study of art history, aesthetics and locations other than only on the college Parimoo, who studied abroad, taught The generation of students fortunate the guidance of Professor Jyoti Bhatt pro-choice and believe that all women art theory without too many other premises. The residency bungalow art history on their return and to have Nasreen Mohamedi as their that I learnt all about photography, as should be economically self-reliant, distractions. Right-wing conservative was one such adda. A rambling old contributed significantly to developing teacher learnt both lessons of art and it was a subject offered as an optional as I see it as imperative to a feminist politics was not seen encroaching colonial style house from the days of the department of art history and life that stayed with them forever. choice in the bachelor’s program at philosophy; and so from the age so blatantly on art college campuses the Gaekwad’s rule, it was segmented aesthetics that attracted reputed Discipline was an important principle that time. I learnt to develop black and of eighteen I have been financially back then, with agendas to propagate into separate areas and served as historians like Karl Khandalawala, for Nasreen, and in her very quiet white film and printing techniques in independent. I did commercial skewered nationalist sentiments, nor living quarters for the teaching staff Mildred Archer, Partha Mitter and but assertive way she demanded that the dark room. I would wander around photography and sold my art works were there attempts to usurp the of the university. It is here, in the many more to attend seminars and every student she taught understood Baroda taking photographs of street- at nominal prices through alternative autonomy of governance of educational right hand corner of this dilapidated deliver lectures. Krishna Chhatpar the value of this. She opened up life, which is perhaps the most obvious venues such as pavement exhibitions art institutions with the desire to infuse building with a small garden patch in taught sculpture to this foundation our observations to challenge our instinct most people have when they organised by students, and through conservative, non-liberal methods front of it, that Gulammohammed course. His method of instruction perceptions and made us alert to the first use a camera. Learning photography architect friends in Baroda who were of teaching art. There was a genuine and Nilima Sheikh lived and worked was to invite you to find your curiosity.