*The coloured squares on the paper are watercolour tablets therefore not mentioned as separate material.
These sets of drawings have been like Covid diaries of a woman and her domestic realm. Simone de Beauvoir, the century’s most iconic feminist scholar calls the burden of housework on women a ‘Sisyphian torture’. In her book the Second Sex, she says: “Few tasks are more like the torture of Sisyphus than housework, with its endless repetition: the clean becomes soiled, the soiled is made clean, over and over, day after day. The housewife wears herself out marking time: she makes nothing, simply perpetuates the present ... Eating, sleeping, cleaning – the years no longer rise up towards heaven, they lie spread out ahead, grey and identical. The battle against dust and dirt is never won.” This kind of sums up the inspiration behind these works. So there are vegatables, fruits and flowers etc, self in the times, funny battles with cleaning series, the pigeon death tragedy in my studio etc. etc. Each one is a true story.
July, 2020
July, 2020
From the covid diaries series
Watercolour on paper mix media
Dimensions: 16 H x 12 W in.
Signed by the artist
Unframed
Megha Joshi, born 1973, is a contemporary Indian artist. Trained as a sculptor from the Faculty of Fine Arts, MS University Baroda, India, Joshi worked as a set designer and art director for film and television for 10 years before she quit to return to her fine art practice in 2008. A large part of her practice focuses on Gender, Ritual and Religion though her uniqueness lies in her ability to express herself on various subjects, in a vast variety of media. She has worked with conventional materials such steel, fabric, bronze, rubber and most interestingly, everyday objects and materials used in Hindu ritualism. Her works are strong yet experimental, as she does not believe in forced homogeneity in artworks. She does scale installations such as with incense sticks for The Sculpture Park Madhavendra Palace, curated by Peter Nagy and cotton wool at the Sandarbh residency, Baroda. Drawing remains a constant in her practice. She has been actively participating in shows in India and abroad and has been invited to art residencies in Budapest, Scotland, Japan and Iceland. Her work has been shown at the India Art Fair almost every year. Her solos include ‘I:Object’ and most recently “Rite of Passage”, 2022-23, held in New Delhi. Her works are in the collection of galleries, institutions and collectors in India and abroad.
