‘The longing for this city never ends’

India’s foremost contemporary artist, Anjolie Ela Menon returns to the city after a gap of almost a decade. She talks about her life, work, what influences it and more...

One of India’s finest contemporary artists, Anjolie Ela Menon returned to Mumbai a almost after a decade to enthral a privileged few with nuggets from her very illustrative career. In a talk held at the Coomaraswamy Hall at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya, the Padma Shri awardee began by talking about her connection with the city. “I held my exhibitions in Bombay many years ago and they have been the most productive years of my life. I held about six or seven exhibitions at various galleries. My husband who was working in the Navy would be posted in various states and we could never really afford to buy a place of our own in Bombay. So we had to choose to settle in Delhi. But the longing for this city never ends. I arrived to find it still the same. I love the smell of this city,” the artist said.

Over a journey that spans five decades, Menon’s art has incorporated the resonance of diverse cultures. It was the Romanesque Church imagery that really caught her imagination and continues to impact her work to this day, she reveals. “When I went to Paris I was completely taken by the Romanesque art, particularly the churches which has a sense of solemnity to it. There was a time when my friend Shama Zaidi and I chased all the churches throughout Europe — in Spain, France and Italy — often laying on our backs in small churches to admire the beautifully painted ceilings. You will see those influences in my early works.”

While her preferred medium is oil on masonite, she has worked with glass and watercolours too. Experimentation has always formed the core of Menon’s art. “I like to experiment,” she says while talking of her influences at different points in life. She spoke of how the paintings that she created after her marriage have more traces of embellishments. “It is true that women do like to embellish and embroider and that also reflects in some of my works,” she says. However, she strongly objects to the woman-artist tag. “I have always objected to the expression that she is a good woman artist. We never use the term he is a man painter, so I object to the tag. And I wouldn’t concede that a woman’s world shrinks after marriage and that she has to be with kids and take care of them.”

Menon went on to talk about her critics. “People have often written about my works saying that I’m half in love with death. That’s not entirely true, but I do like to create a little disturbance in my paintings. It’s to prevent a painting from being too pretty and too bland.”

After years of moving houses, the artist has finally made Delhi her home. “For 30 years, I must have moved 30 houses and that has found expression in my works too. I have finally managed to find a studio in the Nizzamuddin Basti in Delhi. There are some old villages in Delhi, which have over the years got surrounded by high rises. But nobody touched the bastis and they remain as is. I have my studio in one such wonderful village. Many of the faces one sees in my paintings are of the people from the basti. I don’t think of them while painting but once I'm done I ask myself, “Is this the guy from house number 3 ”