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Photo: Shilpa Nair Anand

Musings Mahija Chandran

The artist has used mixed media – acrylic, charcoal, pencil. Although trained as a sculptor, with an MFA from the RLV College of Fine Arts, Tripunithura, Mahija says her first love is drawing and hence the exhibition.

Each frame tells a different story, the story lies in the interpretation of the beholder. Loneliness, relationships of convenience and women lie at the heart of Mahija’s work. Ask her if there is an autobiographical element in her paintings, she says “not really, maybe not consciously. The concerns are with our condition – as a society too.” ‘A Flower and Bed’ – a rose bloom on a bed speaks volumes, so does ‘Partners for Today’ which has a Malayali girl and a Caucasian man sitting together touches upon the darker side of tourism and relationships of convenience.

Images of women, in the foreground or the background, dominate most of the canvases. A woman and the home which can either stifle her or make her bloom predominate. “Generally what happens is that a woman is invariably confined within the four walls of her home and although she dreams, she is bound to that confined space,” says Mahija.

Charcoal etchings, in stark black and white sometimes blended with acrylic colours makes an interesting statement.

At times some of the etching and drawings tend to have a childlike quality in the subject that has been chosen and the execution as well.

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