Why you don't walk the streets in your undies

The underwear comes closest to revealing your inner self, believes Nibha Sikander whose works feature in an ongoing group show by three women artists from Baroda

The underwear comes closest to revealing your inner self, believes Nibha Sikander whose works feature in an ongoing group show by three women artists from Baroda

Nibha Sikander usually paints clothes on canvas. But for her current group show at Strand Art Room, the Baroda artist took a long hard look back in time to tailoring drafts and the hidden world of corsets and brassieres. "You don't walk the streets in your underwear. It's second skin; the garment is one step away from your true naked self," she says. Using pen and acrylic on handmade paper, Nibha uses a red line to draw a contrast between the different strokes of reality and fantasy. "The red line is the woman's real body and the corset is her fantasy. As in real life, big breasts want to fit into a small bra and small breasts want to fit into big ones." Nibha's works fit perfectly with the theme of the group exhibition Show! Girls, which brings together the works of three young women artists from Baroda. It flirts with preconceptions of femininity as well as with the Indian consumer society and its publicity machine.

A woodcut by Preeti Agrawal

Says curator Rukshaan Krishna, "Preeti Agrawal, Riya Chatterjee and Nibha Sikander went to the same art school in Baroda. Despite a similar educational background, their works are drastically different due to their diverse working mediums and modes of expression."



In her expressive woodcut prints, Preeti explores her internal world fearlessly fusing between poetic imagery and elements from daily life. For instance, a woodcut of a girl with a horse's head reading a book of the alphabet represents her race to pursue an MFA degree. In her sewn works, Riya seams together elements from her private world with elements that represent "femininity" or what is typically expected of a woman by society.u00a0

Show! Girls is on view till December 3 from Monday to Saturday, 11 am to 8 pm, at Strand Art Room, Ama house, next to Strand Cinema, Colaba. Call: 32991008.