Love (left) & Where One Hand Claps / Signs That Betray Its Meaning (centre) & Triptych: Portrait of a Christian Woman ,Portrait of a Mohammedan Woman, Portrait of a Hindoo Woman (right)

(left) In this metal sculpture depicting the interaction of two bovine skeletons, one creature lying on his back appears to support a female alter-ego standing above. It appears as though their flesh has withered away while they were at play and hence, they have become fossilized for posterity – a monument of love, perhaps? Even though the creatures share minimal contact there is intimacy in the representation of love as the reflected self in ‘the other.’

Several of Shetty’s kinetic works are characterized by the use of the skeleton; the exposed framework of the being thus becomes an important signifier. The visual experience of this work is punctuated by a repetitive bell-like sound, giving it a ‘sacred’ undertone. This gesture could also be viewed as playing with the use of cow as religious icon.

(centre) C. R. Nanaiah’s posters serve as an ironic counter to the profusion of canvassing material that one is surrounded by at the time of elections. During an artists’ residency, Nanaiah inundated public space with these cheaply printed posters, plastering them on walls alongside other election campaign posters.

Shifting the emphasis from the candidates who aspire to be leaders in public life, to the ‘dots’ or the voters who create these leaders, Nanaiah’s poster shows the ink-marked finger of the voter who has already voted. Whom he voted for remains unknown to us. This finger is triumphant, and even defiant. The collectivity of gesticulating fingers pasted on the wall might be making their irreverent gesture to us or to the politicians whose fate hinges upon their action.

(right) In Triptych, the photo-performance artist Pushpamala uses 19th-century studio portrait language to make ‘non-portraits’ of women. We can recognise her form in ‘Portrait of a Mohammedan Woman’, but cannot identify her. We can see a hint of the bride’s face behind her veil in ‘Portrait of a Christian Woman’, but her identity is obscured. And in ‘Portrait of a Hindoo Woman,’ Pushpamala modestly turns her back on the lens and the world, forever facing the inner spaces within which she is confined.

Pushpmala uses the medium of photography to comment on the stereotype of the veiled woman, turned into a ‘cipher’ .Posing as each of the women, she crafts her photographs with the appropriate props, costumes and lighting. With her deliberate use of dated spellings for the titles, she mimics the ethnographic colonial documentation of the natives, with emphasis on types rather than individuality. At another level, she uses images of three women from different religious backgrounds, to comment on the status of women as objects of male possession and desire.