MOTIFS, PATTERNS AND POLITICSThe ART OF ANINDITA BHATTACHARYAThough what strikes us visually is the referentiality
towards the miniature tradition, Anindita Bhattacharya’s
works need to be historically situated in the (post) lineage
of the Baroda Narrative tradition. At the same time,
her works are a personal interpretation of a collective
experience woven in and around the traditional consort
of miniature paintings. Having always painted the very
personal, the communal riots of 2004 of Gujarat, changed
the political personal separation. She began to explore
Mughal history as an attempt towards not ghettoing art
as Hindu or Muslim. That is her entry to Mughal and
later Persian miniatures. Then on her work became more
layered through incorporation of the patterns within the
composition, the compartmentalized spatial structure,
and the way at times the composition moves out of the
rigid structure of the frame in the latter.
These patterns in her works later got infused with
the everyday and mundane as well as images of personal
and socio- political significance ranging from immersion
rods, scissors, slippers, irons, to geographical maps,
gynaecological instruments, grenades, bombs and manymore. These are mostly woven into a pattern in the
centre of my composition making them the protagonist
of the painting with the narrative constructed around the
central image as a frame or the margin.
The frame, being an integral part of Mughal and
Persian miniatures, became a place for her to approach
the subject of the painting in visually narrative ways, with
the intention of bringing to the center what traditionally
would have been relegated to the margin. This has been
her way of exploring the way in which visual dialogues
can be initiated between the abstracted central image and
the linear narrative that is woven around it on the frame.
