Pushpamala N. (born 1956) is a photo and visual artist based in

Bangalore Bangalore (), officially Bengaluru (), is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Karnataka. It has a population of more than and a metropolitan population of around , making it the third most populous city and fifth most ...

, India. Born in

, Pushpamala formally trained as a sculptor and eventually shifted to photography to explore her interest in narrative figuration. Pushpamala has been referred to as "the most entertaining artist-iconoclast of contemporary Indian art ". Her work has been described as

performance A performance is an act of staging or presenting a play, concert, or other form of entertainment. It is also defined as the action or process of carrying out or accomplishing an action, task, or function. Management science In the work place ...

photography, as she frequently uses herself as a model in her own work. " She is known for her strongly feminist work and for her rejection of authenticity and embracing of multiple realities. As one of the pioneers of conceptual art in India and a leading figure in the feminist experiments in subject, material and language, her inventive work in sculpture, conceptual photography, video and performance have had a deep influence on art practice in India."

Early life and education

Pushpamala N. was born in Bangalore, Karnataka. She finished her Bachelors in Economics, English and Psychology from

Bangalore University Bangalore University (BU) is a public state university located in Bangalore, Karnataka, India. The university is a part of the Association of Indian Universities (AIU), Association of Commonwealth Universities (ACU) and affiliated by Univers ...

in 1977, where she studied under

Balan Nambiar Balan Nambiar ( ml, ബാലൻ നമ്പ്യാര്‍; born 12 November, 1937 in Kannapuram) is an Indian painter, sculptor, enamellist, photographer and an academic researcher. Biography As a sculptor he worked with clay, fiber ...

, an Indian artist based in Bangalore. She then studied Sculpture at the Faculty of Fine Arts,

Maharaja Sayajirao University The Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, formerly Baroda College, is a public university in the city of Vadodara, in Gujarat state, India. Originally established as a college in 1881, it became a university in 1949 after the independence of ...

Baroda Vadodara (), also known as Baroda, is the second largest city in the Indian state of Gujarat. It serves as the administrative headquarters of the Vadodara district and is situated on the banks of the Vishwamitri River, from the state capital ...

, from where she completed her Bachelors in 1982 and Masters in 1985. At Baroda, artists like sculptor Raghav Kaneria,

Bhupen Khakhar Bhupen Khakhar (also spelled Bhupen Khakkar, 10 March 1934 – 8 August 2003) was an Indian artist. He was a member of the Baroda Group and gained international recognition for his work as "India's first 'Pop' artist." Works Khakhar was a sel ...

and

K.G. Subramanyan Kalpathi Ganpathi "K.G." Subramanyan (1924 29 June 2016) was an Indian artist. He was awarded the Padma Vibhushan in 2012. Life Subramanyan was born in Tamil Brahmin family on 1924 in Kuthuparamba in Kerala, India, and initially studied econ ...

were some of her early influences.

Work

Trained as a sculptor, Pushpamala N's first solo exhibition was at the Venkatappa Art Gallery,

in 1983. She used terracotta and paper mache as medium in her early works and participated in the landmark exhibition, 'Seven Young Sculptors' curated by

Vivan Sundaram Vivan Sundaram (born 28 May 1943) is an Indian contemporary artist. His parents were Kalyan Sundaram, Chairman of Law Commission of India from 1968 to 1971, and Indira Sher-Gil, sister of noted Indian modern artist Amrita Sher-Gil. He is mar ...

, exhibited in New Delhi in 1985. The

demolition of Babri Masjid The demolition of the Babri Masjid was illegally carried out on 6 December 1992 by a large group of activists of the Vishva Hindu Parishad and allied organisations. The 16th-century Babri Masjid in the city of Ayodhya, in Uttar Pradesh, had ...

and the communal violence that ensued in its aftermath, especially the

Bombay riots In the Bombay riots in December 1992 and January 1993, an estimated 900 people died. The riots were mainly due to escalations of hostilities after large scale protests by Muslims in reaction to the 1992 Babri Masjid Demolition by Hindu Karsev ...

in 1992–93 heavily inspired her landmark show, 'Excavations' that was exhibited in Gallery Chemould, Mumbai, India in 1994. 'Excavations' was a conceptual shift from her earlier works as she moved from figurative sculptures to assemblages of objects made of cheap materials and thrown away papers. The project tried to look at contemporary history as an archaeological site. She explains her shift in the medium, "In my early sculptures, mainly in terracotta, I was interested in creating an indigenous language based on an essential idea of "Indianness", using poor materials and folk art references. A new language had to be used to express the sharp disjunctures and fragmentations in the tumultuous realities around us". By later part of the 1990s, Pushpamala N. left sculpture altogether and shifted to photographic works. Often created as series, the artist refers to these photographic works as 'photo-romances'. She acknowledges that it was

, painter and her friend who inspired her for this kind of photo performances. Using her own body to perform the various roles in these series, her 'photo-romances' borrow from popular culture, mythology and historical references interspersed with wit and humour to offer a critique of the contemporary society. "Phantom Lady or Kismet, a photo romance," presented as a solo exhibition at Gallery Chemould in 1998, the artist created a series of noir-thriller photographs of herself alternately as a gangster's moll and a masked adventurer. She continued with these photo-romance series with 'Sunhere Sapne' (Golden dreams) that was realized during the 1998 Khoj international workshop at Modinagar, Delhi where she tried to capture the fantasy of an average middle-class housewife, dressed in the urban uniform of housecoat and petticoat, and her alter ego, a girl in a golden frock with a bouffant hairdo. She followed it with other photo-romance series like 'Dard-e-Dil'(The Anguished Heart) in 2002, a narrative photo sequence set in Chawri Bazaar, Delhi; and 'Bombay Photo Studio' a project that she undertook from 2000–03. In 2004, her project 'Native women of South India', a collaborative project of performance photography realized with British Photographer Clare Arni, looks at photography as an ethnographic tool and deconstructs the popular images of the 'native' woman. Extending the performative aspect of the photo to video films, she made 'Paris Autumn', a work of fiction in the style of a gothic thriller, narrating the story of the artist's stay in Paris in 2005. The 35-minute film of black and white still photographs opened in Galerie Zurcher, Paris, France and has been premiered at different venues across the world. Her last film, 'Rashtriy Kheer and Desi Salad', an eleven-minute film made in 2007, was about using material from her mother's and mother-in-law's recipe books and is an ironic look at the Indian family post-independence. Pushpamala N.'s work has often been compared to American artist

Cindy Sherman Cynthia Morris Sherman (born January 19, 1954) is an American artist whose work consists primarily of photographic self-portraits, depicting herself in many different contexts and as various imagined characters. Her breakthrough work is often co ...

's.

Prizes

She is the recipient of many honours, including a

National Film Award The National Film Awards is the most prominent film award ceremony in India. Established in 1954, it has been administered, along with the International Film Festival of India and the Indian Panorama, by the Indian government's Directora ...

(1984); a gold medal at the Sixth Triennale, India (1986); a Charles Wallace Trust Fellowship (1992–93); a Senior Fellowship at the Indian Ministry of Human Resource Development (1995–97) and an Arts Collaboration Grant from the India Foundation for the Arts (2000).

Selected exhibitions

2019 ''The Body Politic –'' photographs, video, and sculpture, Nature Morte Gallery, New Delhi, India 2015 ''Khamoshi ki Daastan-'' Vadehra Art Gallery, New Delhi, India 2013 ''Poses and Views-'' A Group Exhibition, Nature Morte Gallery, Berlin, Germany 2012 ''The Return of the Phantom Lady (Sinful City),'' The Oberoi, Gurgaon, India ''Avega- The Passion,'' Nature Morte Gallery, New Delhi, India 2010 ''Spiral Jetty-'' A group show with Abishek Hazra, Josh PS, Jeffrey Schiff, Anita Dube, Pushpamala N., and Seher 2008 ''Paris Autumn'' – video and photo installation, Bose Pacia Gallery, New York City; 2007 ''Indian Photo and Media Art: A Journey of Discovery'', Fluss, Vienna, Austria ''Post Object'', Doris McCarthy Gallery, University of Toronto, Canada ''Private/ Corporate IV'', DaimlerChrysler Contemporary, Berlin, Germany ''House of Mirrors'', Grosvenor Vadehra Gallery, London 2006 ''India Express'', Helsinki City Art Museum, Finland ''Paris Autumn'', Galerie Zurcher, Paris ''Native Women of South India'', Bose Pacia Gallery, New York ''Another Asia'', Noorderlicht Photofestival 2006, Netherlands 2005 ''Yokohama Triennale'', Open Circle, Japan ''Fiction'', Love, Shanghai, China 2004 ''Edge of Desire'', Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth, Australia 2003 ''City Park'', Projects Art Centre, Dublin, Ireland ''Phantom Lady and Sunhere Sapne'', Walsh Gallery, Chicago ''The Anguished Heart'',

Gallery Nature Morte Peter Nagy (born 1959) is an American artist and gallerist. Nagy is the owner of Gallery Nature Morte, founded in New York City and now located in India. Early life Nagy was born in 1959 in Bridgeport, Connecticut. He studied at the Parsons Sch ...

and Gallery Chemould, British Council, Delhi 2001 ''Century City'', Tate Modern, London

References

External links

*More information and images from th
Saatchi Gallery
{{Authority control Indian women photographers Artists from Bangalore 1956 births Living people Bangalore University alumni 20th-century Indian photographers 21st-century Indian photographers Indian portrait photographers 20th-century Indian women artists Women artists from Karnataka Photographers from Karnataka 20th-century women photographers 21st-century women photographers