Exploring the Feminine Self in Shanthi Swaroopini’s Works

Art writer Suruchi Khubchandani, who has been following the practice of the Hyderabad-based sculptor Shanthi Swaroopini for some years, attempts to examine how the artist explores the female body while tackling issues of identity and acceptance.

Shanthi Swaroopini’s oeuvre sets a platform for exploring female body as a site of public scrutiny and examination. Juxtaposing acute intensity and warm sensitivity, Shanthi brings out from bronze, the subliminal desires and sensuousness of a female body, which in the process ‘attunes her to her own belonging.’ “It’s about the dilemma of asserting one’s identity. Being born with one and taking on another, is a refuge to be accepted in the society. But the final journey home is when one meets the true self to realise one’s baser existence,” says the sculptor.

Born in 1966 in the city of Visakhapatnam, in Andhra Pradesh, Shanthi did her BFA (Painting) from Andhra University, Visakhapatnam in1990 and thereafter pursued MFA in Sculpture from M.S. University, Baroda in 1993. The pursuit of specialisation took her to the Kent Institute of Art and Design at University of Kent, Canterbury in 1998, where she completed another Masters.

Interestingly, Shanthi’s focus in her works initially centered on male anatomy, though her concern, at large, has been to mediate what she terms ‘different levels of consciousness.’ A spread of adeptly delineated male figures was hung through strings in an array, while some sat in meditative posture in the adjacent space. The other three men stood in vicinity. This installation, part of her display at the Kent school, infused a transcendental energy for the viewer to engage in a pure, ethereal white space. According to the artist, the peculiar arrangement exemplified the inflow of the five elements in the space and the three different postures, standing one indicative of alertness, seated one, of meditative activity and the lying one of inertness, symbolically affirmed this phenomena.

Myriad influences, essentially from Indian cultural practices, are evident in Shanthi’s thought process. They form an integral part of her works. Yogic practices activate union between dual forces of nature and pure consciousness. Recognition of natural state of being through a naked perception asserts the aesthetic core of her works.

An analogous understanding of Indian temple architecture has also fascinated Shanthi for long and the artist philosophically comprehends this construction as an extension of our being. An efficacious self is representative of the sculptures graved outside the temple, which are more lively and lyrical in their form. More likely, the inner structures house more static renditions which become more serene and sedate while moving to the garbha-griha. The human disposition is similarly understood by Shanthi. In one of her works made of wax and ink, Shanthi portrays a self-visage on a pedestal. An activity of unmasking the mark begins hereon through inscribed ink lines, projecting the filament of the self which remains concealed.

Shanthi’s works donned a metaphorical entity with a solo in Shridharani Art Gallery, New Delhi in 2001. Be it the sculptures or installations, her works always engender a circumstance of vastness and pervasiveness for the onlooker to step back as well as to move around the space seeking to assimilate the experience. In a wall installation, ‘Time Chronicle,’ Shanthi records the persona of her existence through hand markings on wax set as blocks manifesting a calendar. Shanthi calls it her visual diary, which to her did not represent herself but became one.

Configured as a seven month record from March to September, this work stood as an animated preservation of a held time-space. Another work made of wooden bark (of pala tree) metaphorically represented her existence subjected to pain and insomnia experienced through loss of identity. The wooden log equivalent to the size of Shanthi’s body hung on one end of the installation, decreasing in an array while the heap of ash placed exactly below the linear row inversely increased.

Another significant solo that constituted a substantial body of work from the artist was ‘Clothing the Identity,’ at the Gallery Threshold (New Delhi / 2007). The all-round sculptures she presented during this span were mostly smallish, enticing the viewer to discern the gradation of the forms in black patina from an intimate distance. Though an analogous theme ran throughout, these bodies let one sense the raw tissues underneath and the surface of metal bore the lush shine of smooth, ample skin. These sculpted forms – seated, standing, reclining and some suspended from the ceiling – engaged both in steady and violent permutation, the purpose being the transgression from its carnal levels to a spiritual level.

One among the standing structure, with lowered head, viewed her own body while her somewhat extended hands seem to be reaching out the space beyond, embracing it, as if inviting it within. Says Shanthi, “Subconsciously the desire to be accepted runs invariably in us. The renouncement for an amorphous self eases the process and simultaneously opens door for unfettered expression.”

Metaphorical indications are also occupying significant spaces in Shanthi’s work. Indian iconography is apparent in evocating new meaning to the forms. A women seated above a humanoid ‘turtle’ in one of her works, rests her hands on its back, appearing to have exchanged bodily characteristics with the animal, hinting at the Indian myth about earth being supported by the divine koorma. One of them lies down with her belly to the ground like a reptile, her body rigid and hard. “I have deliberately tried to evoke animalistic instincts in my subjects. There’s more to the even persona of a women. The point is that it is her essential being,” says Shanthi.

That gets truer when she uses sparse lines to subtly capture human-vegetal equation, for instance, depicting veins sliding down the body of the female form, embracing it like dress, and elegantly branching out like creepers. Absorbing the elemental substances elsewhere, Shanthi drapes an otherwise normal figure in skin of a ‘spotted dear,’ covers the shoulders and back of another with thick images of ‘bees’ and punctuates the spine of yet another with sharp ‘reptile spikes’. Her work enunciates the regeneration of self as a process of natural growth, of which a person eventually becomes a participator.

For the last three years, Shanthi has returned to her hometown, currently working as a lecturer at the Hyderabad College of Art. Water colours on paper are an offshoot of her current location and she defines this as a ‘loosening process’ of her volatile practice. The inspiration came through the encouraging words of senior artist Laxma Goud who felt that Shanthi should concentrate on genitalia as a singular entity constituting a loop of existence. The narrative constituting manifestation of the self for Shanthi has suffused its existence in multiple forms.

The water colours conjure delicate, fluid slashes in fertile red construing female genitals, bearing generative forms. The genitalia fail to constitute a singular identity of fetish or voyeurism, rather becoming a subtle cover of feminine sexuality. The delicateness which imbibes her ideas also leverages an impervious metal like copper, the volatile qualities that express organicness present in nature. Entangled lines suspended from the ceiling in ‘DisPlay,’ exhibited by Gallery Threshold at India Art Summit, 2009 suggested a circuit of alternating forces of life taking humanoid form. From definite figuration to metaphoric symbolisations, the art of Shanthi Swaroopini has thematically dealt with her existential concerns undertaken through the most fragile and tenacious material, in all ascribing her personal state of mind.

(Suruchi Khubchandani is an art writer based in Delhi. She has done M.V.A. in Art History & Aesthetics from M.S.University, Baroda. Email: sur14in@gmail.com)