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Tender moments in metal
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Dimpy Menon's bronze sculptures are cute and decorative
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A Moment depicts three dancers striking various poses
IN HER ongoing exhibition titled Moments at Time and Space Gallery, Dimpy Menon has presented a set of 19 cute and decorative bronze sculptures. As in the past, the human figure continues to be the principal focus in Dimpy's works.
The Dancer has a sinuously stretched out profile of a female performer, while A Moment depicts three dancers striking various poses and almost seem to be floating in thin air.
In the latter work, Dimpy nicely manipulates the dancers' movements, but the thick frame to which the figures are cleverly attached seems to reduce the overall impact.
Ideal moment
In her two other works titled Woman On A Promontory and Timelessness, the human figure is delineated in divergent forms.
While the former has a woman sitting on top of an expansive, hard rock ("This seldom happens in real life, but one does visualise this ideal moment!" says Dimpy), in Timelessness, the human figure is lingering lazily on a rock with an extended hand skimming the surface of an imaginary water stream.
The Silent Friend is an ode to her favourite tree with which she claims a personal and enduring relationship. In Sketch 2, the sculpture is almost reduced to a two-dimensional line drawing with a stiff figure squatting in front of a tree. In Mother And Son, Dimpy alludes to her own nostalgia, but the result is a bit contrived.
Among the better works are Sketch 1 (where Dimpy tries to "work on textures as she would on paper, without losing the sculptural quality") and On A Sunday Afternoon, where the combination of metal and stone seems to work in tandem to create a relaxed mood and balanced composition.
Overall, the exhibition lays bare some key faculties of the sculptor.
Technical skill
While her technical capability is confirmed through some of the displayed works, it is the treatment of themes and overall aesthetic expression that seem to be falling into a routine.
The weakest pieces (like in many of the hanging sculptures) are formal in execution, extremely decorative, and bereft of emotional content. The smaller format used in works such as Urban Pastime denies the viewer a full appreciation of the theme being explored, while pieces such as Occultation Of Venus 2 are quite pedestrian in both form and content.
(The exhibition at Time and Space Gallery concludes on August 18.)
ATHREYA
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