Diary Entries' - An all women's art exhibition

In a thoughtful assortment of artworks representing uninhibited expression of voices of women, a new exhibition reimagines the importance of the practice of writing a diary, which is gradually becoming a thing of the past.
An all women's exhibition titled "Diary Entries," seeks to engage the spirit of the 'diary,' as a place where past, present and future come together and the artist has complete freedom to express his thoughts.
The exhibition unites five renowned women artists from different social backgrounds who have used diverse materials such as drawing, video and sculpture, bringing in autobiography, as well as their ideas on the present environment.

"The diary was always a very important part of how women express themselves because women could not always publish. They could not even make their thinking and emotions public. The diary has been like a domestic art, and now that it is becoming a phenomenon that seems to belong to the 20th century, we wanted to examine what is its relevance today," says Gayatri Sinha, who has curated the exhibition.
The five participating artists include Paula Sengupta, Nilima Sheikh, Hemali Bhuta, Sheba Chhachhi and Benitha Perciyal who have responded with the richness and diversity of their practice and created works that are both intimate and reflective.

Calling sketchbook the artistic doppleganger of a diary, as both carry the first stroke of creative expression, Sinha says the artworks are about, " the aspects of self examination."

The exhibition talks about the personal journeys of each artist. While some are more autobiographical, like Perciyal, who uses a house plan of the house she grew up in evoking memories of her childhood, her parents and also her children's childhood; others like Nilima Sheikh and Sheba Chhachhi make extensive use of text and references to poetry and literature, creating evocative spaces that allow for both word and image to collaborate and make sense.

Perciyal, for instance, also addresses the issues of
migration in the aftermath of a war in particular reference of the Tamils in Sri Lanka.
"The diary is used here as a visual design - how you translate your personal life or your social observations into an artistic form," Sinha says.
Paula Sengupta's work has a retrospective narrative in through which she recounts the memories of her mother who passed away last year.
While she says she never took to the practise of writing a diary, but she maintained a record of the events ever since her mother fell ill.
"I used to record the events like when she was first admitted in the hospital etc," Sengupta says.

Her work titled, "The Kerchief Garden," uses handkerchiefs used by her mother, mother-in-law and herself, like witnesses to history.
She has superimposed these handkerchiefs with the pages of her 'diary' to evoke emotions of bereavenent and a sense of vacuum that is left once a loved one leaves.
The handkerchiefs have been embroidered with motifs of land lotus which was a favourite flower of her mother.
Chhachhi explores the journal as a room, private, ordinary yet rendered strange. The space evokes the half hidden world of the journal where one manages only a glimpse of thoughts never fully revealed.
"Sheiba's work is about the act of writing and the act of creativity. The diary tends to be the first point for writing. Even for writers today, the diary is the first point of making a note or observation. The condition of writing the diary is what the artist has visualised," Sinha says.

Bhuta through her artwork enquires into the presence of sculpture in its absence and questions the transition of the surface. Turning to the materials of the making of the city, she examines the possibilities of a construction, a breakdown and a reconstruction.
"Hemali Bhuta is using large paper works to express the transition of the city of Mumbai. Bombay has a lot demolitions of building and this is like a document of her time and her observations of the city," Sinha says.
The exhibition which is underway at Gallery Espace is scheduled to continue till February 20.