Shalinee Kumari is arguably the most progressive of these artists, producing highly narrative, vibrantly colored critical works on hand-made paper illustrating currently pressing issues such as the evils of dowry, bride burning, capitalism, inflation, corporate control of the media, global warming, terrorism, and the sexual exploitation of women. But she also does paintings on women’s cricket, gender equality, and women’s liberation.
"Women Can Do Everything Now" by Shalinee Kumari. Acrylic and ink on handmade paper.
Roots in Indian tradition with the wings to fly to new heights, is how I would characterize the “American Debut of Shalinee Kumari” on view through July 19th at the Frey Norris Gallery, 456 Geary Street in San Francisco. This fascinating display features 18 works on paper in the Mithila style of Indian painting. This style is indicative of the Madhubani region where female-based paintings exhibit Hindu themes celebrating rites of passage (marriage and birth). Shalinee Kumari, a 23 year-old artist, expresses her worldview with a focus on larger global issues.
Her symbolic visual language grows from the Mithila tradition, but it is her unique approach to contemporary themes (global warming, terrorism, capitalism, the financial crisis and women’s empowerment) that places her squarely at the intersection of the reverent past and a global future. Shalinee Kumari has seen the some of the effects of social ills that she paints from her remote rural village of Haripur Baxi Tola in India’s poorest region, Bihar.
However she gets much of her international news from the BBC. The work speaks to a longing to find her way within a larger context. Kumari who has exhibited in New Delhi and in Bihar finds herself in New York and San Francisco on her first trip outside of India. Her well-timed US visit coincides with a contemporary Mithila group show at the Los Angeles Craft and Folk Art Museum that includes her work.
I am struck with her exploration of opposition, such as masculine and feminine seen in both “Shiva and Parvati: The Divine Couple” and “Radiant yet Submissive”. Her work appears to have an additional self-referential element navigating the dynamics of traditional women’s roles in our developing world.
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