Nepal Now Project, Welt museum Vienna 2019
Acrylic on Canvas | 182 cm x 99.06 cm | 2017 | In Collection P & P. Pandey
Look into her eyes. Yes, you, she is looking at you. She reminds you of Ingres’ Odalisque and the deity Kali, does she not?
She is beautiful and she is not.
She is a mythical figure and a pop icon.
Female bodies have long been used in art to show the idealized female form with demure expressions. Here, the serene eyes of the blue skinned-woman contradict the fierce tongue she sticks out. She symbolizes the contradictions of ideas that exist as you move through the world, in histories, in identities, in the shape-shifting nature of being the Other. Who is this Other changes according to time and context. The blue-skinned woman is a rebel but she is not angry or fearful. She simply does not accept the expectations of the world. As an Odalisque, she is told she has the luxury to be free but Freedom — that crowned Liberty — she knows has long been dead. It sits by her side, a skeletal form. The woman, with her Kali’s tongue, could be a deity, or with the languid form of her body, an western artwork wrapped in references.
The centrepoint of this canvas is not in the center. Manish Harijan, the artist, composed it from left to right. Filled with symbols that question contemporary social issues, which resonate globally, he asks: do we have a local identity in this global world? The west and east clash, mesh, impose their opacity, and demand transparency. Who decides what is made visible and how. What, in this process, is left in the shadows. Who is in control of our narratives?
Bhairabh flies toward the blue-skinned woman with flower petals, which are direct references to Botticelli’s Birth of Venus and Michelangelo’s Creation of Adam. They are at once symbols of freedom and symbols of showmanship displayed by the one who controls the story — currencies contextualized to justify slavery in the age of capitalism. The Odalisque’s form questions the imagined ideas of beauty in both the east and the west, giving the idealized unrealistic female form the ferocity of Kali, whose powerful figure instills dread. The skull of Liberty, still crowned, signals the death of freedom of ideas and also relates the composition to the garland of human skulls Kali — in her mythological form — is usually seen wearing while sticking her tongue out at the world. The monkey at the female’s feet is the masculine figure who protects and destroys. The painting is meant to seduce and repel at the same time.
Western pop icons play an important part in Manish Harijan’s art. Their recognisability in the contemporary world makes them accessible tools to reach a larger audience as he himself navigates the global through local cultural histories.
Text by – Abha Eli Phoboo
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