Overview

Blueprint.12 and Gallery Espace present Out of Your Shadow, a group show of women artists from six South Asian countries– Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka.

Besides geography, these countries share a common legacy of colonial dominance and a similarity of culture and social mores, of ideas and philosophies, of architecture and iconography. In recent times, they are united by a common political system – democracy (with varying degrees of success) – and a history of unrest, repression and violence. Women, have been the worst affected by this, their lives circumscribed or altered against their wishes. These experiences, their own or those of others they see around them, have sharpened these women artists’ focus on identity – political and gender – and the forces that shape or endanger it. Of course, it’s unfair to pin their art to either gender or politics; their art is an aesthetic response, oblique and intensely personal, keeping within the bounds of convention while also seeking to transcend and mould it to their needs.

“Out of Your Shadow.” Blueprint.12 and Gallery Espace, New Delhi. https://www.galleryespace.com/exhibition-espace/out-of-your-shadow-2/