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Indian artist Dipali Gupta's creative ideas emanate from the feminine domain. She explores social norms from a woman's perspective and deconstructs them to create new meanings.
Her works, displayed at the Cuturi Gallery on Aliwal Street during Singapore Art Week from Jan 22 to 30, were deep studies into societal constructs of female sexuality and the historical standing of women.
The combination of moving image, painting and installation formed part of the exhibition Resituating Home (making): Hyper Material Domesticity.
Her video art piece, Moving Still Life, connected the place of women in society by relating to the less significant genre of still-life painting.
Historically, still-life painting is considered less important than figurative painting, and since women were not allowed to join art academies, they would usually paint still life in their domestic space.
Her painting titled What Did You See? focused on the ancient art of the Japanese shunga (a type of erotic art) and reinterprets theories of the male gaze.
The varied materials and objects displayed in her installation, The Little Death, allegorically referred to female sexual pleasure, domesticity and reproduction.
Overall, her artworks spoke about otherwise difficult topics related to women. "My work has largely to do with norms that we may think are ideological but may be subjugating women," said Dipali, 43, who is from Mumbai but currently lives in Singapore. "I normally use drawings, objects and video to subvert these issues."
Dipali, whose works have been showcased across South-east Asia, Hong Kong and India and discussed at forums in Portugal and the United States, was also involved with Artwalk Little India this year.
She played a part in the collaborative video titled Navras In Peril, which is being projected on a wall along Buffalo Road every evening from 7.30pm. It depicts, through the medium of Indian classical dance, the reimagining of the nine rasas or sentiments in the wake of Covid-19, movement control and domestic entrapment.
"It is a dual-channel video work which seeks to explore the triangulated relationship of dancer, audience and site," she said. "The focus on the domestic space of home as an unconventional dance site serves as a landscape of immersive encounters and lived experiences.
"While the home is long appreciated as a safe haven, a place of comfort and belonging, today it almost feels constricting, limiting and hampering freedom and mobility.
"Through diverse occurrences, the dancer navigates her physical and emotional moods and ultimately allows herself to coexist with the reality of the pandemic and its precarious repercussions.
"This work is intentionally a collaborative project because I wanted to foster connectivity and engagement despite our restricted reality."
V.K. SANTOSH KUMAR
