Anju Dodiya

Image Credit - Chemould Prescott Road

Anju Dodiya is a Mumbai-based artist who is known for her sensitive "fictional self-portraits" that address the terrifying act of creation. She received her degree in painting from Sir J.J. School of Art in 1986, and since the 1990s, she has been acknowledged as one of her generation's most well-known painters. In her works, she challenges the limits of watercolour on hostile surfaces in terms of scale and texture. Her paintings usually contrast hard-edged charcoal incursions with soft, spontaneous watercolour blotches and stains and her artworks frequently address socio-economic and cultural events as they unfold in a subtly critical manner. Imbued with complex symbolism, the details in her paintings depict the disparity between appearance and reality.

Image Credit - Chemould Prescott Road

The veteran artist has developed her emblematic visual language and scale throughout the years, layering references from literature, European cinemas, Japanese Ukio-e prints, Renaissance masters, miniature paintings, and, more recently, artworks uploaded on Instagram. She has also been influenced by myths from all across the world as well as medieval devotional poetry and Gujarati folklore. Cultural scholar Nancy Adajania has remarked that when viewing Dodiya's self-reflective pieces, viewers "encounter a palimpsest of art history, cinema, haute couture, and private joke." In Dodiya's paintings, mythical women like Daphne, Penelope, and Arachne have featured as protagonists, expressing ideas of vulnerability or participating in the rhythm of labour. Women are frequently at the heart of autobiographical and interpersonal relationships in her works. Another distinct attribute of her artworks is her propensity for anthropomorphic imagery, reflecting her interest in the field of psychoanalysis and the human psyche.

Image Credit - Chemould Prescott Road

She has been featured in a number of private and public collections, including those at the Art Institute of Chicago and the Zabludowicz Collection in Florida, the National Gallery of Modern Art in New Delhi and Mumbai, the Jehangir Nicholson Art Foundation in Mumbai, the Ishara Art Foundation and the Prabhakar Collection in Dubai, the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art in New Delhi, and the Devi Art Foundation in Gurgaon, among many more.