{"id":654,"date":"2025-11-07T17:11:00","date_gmt":"2025-11-07T17:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/galleryespace.com\/artespace\/?p=654"},"modified":"2025-11-07T17:14:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-07T17:14:08","slug":"ways-of-readingunravelling-the-use-of-poetry-in-indian-contemporary-art","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/galleryespace.com\/artespace\/ways-of-readingunravelling-the-use-of-poetry-in-indian-contemporary-art\/","title":{"rendered":"Ways of Reading : Unravelling the use of Poetry in Indian Contemporary Art"},"content":{"rendered":"\n[et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ _builder_version=”4.27.4″ _module_preset=”default” background_color=”RGBA(255,255,255,0)” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.27.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.27.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.27.4″ _module_preset=”default” max_width=”700px” module_alignment=”center” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”]

Artist Atul Dodiya\u2019s reimagination of poet Arun Kolatkar\u2019s poems from Kala Ghoda poems (2014) <\/em>poses the viewer with a dilemma \u2013 are the artworks to be seen or read? From The Rat-poison Man\u2019s Lunch Hour<\/em>\u00a0to Pi Dog<\/em>\u00a0and Breakfast Time at Kala Ghoda<\/em>, long extracts of poems are reproduced with illustrative figures painted \u00a0in watercolour.<\/p>[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.27.4″ _module_preset=”default” width=”95%” max_width=”1600px” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.27.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/galleryespace.com\/artespace\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Shweta-04-The-Rat-poison-Man_s-Lunch-Hour.jpg” title_text=”Shweta-04-The-Rat-poison-Man_s-Lunch-Hour” show_in_lightbox=”on” align=”center” _builder_version=”4.27.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.27.4″ _module_preset=”0a6c4baa-304e-458e-9003-bb7edad6cc4b” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” hover_enabled=”0″ sticky_enabled=”0″]

(Atul Dodiya, \u2018The Rat-poison Man’s Lunch Hour\u2019, 2014 Watercolour, charcoal and soft pastel on paper 72 x 45 inches, Image courtesy the artist)<\/p>[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.27.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.27.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.27.4″ _module_preset=”default” max_width=”700px” module_alignment=”center” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”]

From his wanderings, and a table at the Wayside Inn cafe at Kala Ghoda, Kolatkar observed and documented the street life of the city in this collection, which is populated with marginal figures (the rat-poison man, pinwheel boy, hipster queen of the crossroads), stray dogs, cast-off objects \u00a0and garbage. Dodiya\u2019s terse, emaciated outlines, some of which have a skeletal head or have their bones and innards exposed, are connected to the poems in direct as well as oblique ways. The black charcoal blobs and the ashy hue of the paintings refer to the tormented psyche of the city migrants. \u201cThe migrants \u00a0who come to the city to earn a living end up feeling \u00a0trapped and marooned in the city \u00a0as if \u00a0they are in a Kala Pani prison,\u201d says Dodiya. \u00a0<\/p>[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.27.4″ _module_preset=”default” width=”95%” max_width=”1600px” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.27.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/galleryespace.com\/artespace\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Shweta-05-Breakfast-time-at-Kala-Ghoda-7.jpg” title_text=”Shweta-05-Breakfast-time-at-Kala-Ghoda-7″ show_in_lightbox=”on” align=”center” _builder_version=”4.27.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.27.4″ _module_preset=”0a6c4baa-304e-458e-9003-bb7edad6cc4b” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” hover_enabled=”0″ sticky_enabled=”0″]

Breakfast Time at Kala Ghoda<\/em>
(Atul Dodiya, \u2018Breakfast time at Kala Ghoda \u2013 7\u2019, 2014, Watercolour, charcoal and soft pastel on paper\u00a072 x 45 inches, Image courtesy the artist)<\/p>[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.27.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.27.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.27.4″ _module_preset=”default” max_width=”700px” module_alignment=”center” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”]

\u201cI have a painting called Sunday Morning Marine Drive <\/em>(1995), in which you can see the Arabian sea over a parapet. The sea is completely black, it’s literally Kala Pani. That is where the black spots come from. They also break the literalness of the works.\u201d The Kala Ghoda series that portrays a particular milieu of Bombay, frames poetry and art as an extension of place, transforming the city into a poetic text to be perused. The act of reading is<\/em>\u00a0the work.<\/p>\n

This tension between seeing and reading through a convergence of poetry\/ literature and art is present in the artistic practices of Zarina, C Douglas, Baaraan Ijlal, among others. Poetry lends rhythmic text, adds elements of sound and shape, besides providing \u00a0resistance to institutionalised language. The use of poetry must be further contextualized within the larger framework of incorporation of various forms of writings into art. Dodiya, for example, \u00a0is enmeshed in the world of diverse visual and literary cultures and his art works are a melange of \u00a0allusions and references. He has cited \u00a0poems by Gujarati poets \u00a0Ravji Patel and Sitanshu Yashaschandra in Antler Anthology <\/em>(2004),<\/em>\u00a0and his show Bako Exists. Imagine <\/em>(2011) renders \u00a0a fictitious conversation \u00a0between Gandhi and Bako, a young protagonist featured in the Gujarati poet Labhshanker Thaker\u2019s writing. Apart from Chinese calligraphy, miniature traditions, Dodiya was influenced by Rabindranath Tagore\u2019s early paintings that started as scribbling or a kind of erasure. \u00a0\u201cWhile \u00a0writing a poem, if he was not happy with certain words, he would cancel words with a pen and ink,\u201d says Dodiya. \u201cThose words removed by scratching became a floating, abstract form. On one side, you have \u00a0precise, readable words, and next to it, on the same page there are dancing forms \u2013 the meaningful and meaningless are juxtaposed together.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Antler Anthology (2004)<\/em>
(Atul Dodiya, \u2018Antler Anthology – II\u2019, 2003, Watercolour, charcoal & marble dust on paper. 78 x 45 inches, Image courtesy the artist)<\/p>[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.27.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.27.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.27.4″ _module_preset=”default” max_width=”700px” module_alignment=”center” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”]

Dodiya also looked closely at VS Gaitonde\u2019s works, some of which had letters drawn on a paper. \u201cThey look like some kind of text, but you can’t read them, they’re essentially notional forms,\u201d says Dodiya. \u201cWhereas, I thought, what if I write something, but it’s absolutely readable, like you know in a language like Gujarati or Hindi or Marathi or English, so that seeing and reading happen simultaneously, both of which are essentially the process of seeing, as reading cannot happen without seeing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Like Dodiya\u2019s inspiration by the literary milieu helped shape his works, C Douglas was steeped in the modernist and symbolist poetry of T.<\/span>S.<\/span>\u00a0Eliot, Rainer Maria Rilke and Rimbaud. His work has to be located within the Madras art movement of the sixties, that \u00a0integrated writing and visual art. \u00a0Helmed by \u00a0KCS Paniker’s Words and Symbols <\/em>series (1963) that used script decoratively, textual references started appearing in works of Reddappa Naidu, KM Adimoolam, SG Vasudev and Douglas. \u201cThis whole idea of how they started using words goes back to \u00a0the intent to make the line the primary expressive tool because they thought the line, which is the basis of drawing and writing, \u00a0has a very important role in Indian art,\u201d says art historian and curator Vaishnavi Ramanathan. \u00a0\u201cThat is where the usage of script started. \u00a0Initially they used it as a motif and then it became an independent element by itself.\u201d For Paniker, script is not a meaning-making signifier, but a visual element.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, Douglas\u2019s inclusion of poetry and writing in his art works to create transitional emotional registers of the human body. \u00a0Tamil writer MD Muthukumaraswamy in his article C.D Douglas: The Mind of the Artist<\/em>\u00a0writes, \u201cBy cohering the word, line and the human body, Douglas invents a new relationship between the things that exist only in the sphere of art\u00a0.\u201d The series Blind Poet and Butterflies <\/em>(2011) by Douglas\u00a0<\/em>explores the idea of a blind poet modelled on Milton whose vision is represented by butterflies with eye-like shapes on its wings, along with a scattering of poetic fragments layering the pictorial space. \u201cDouglas is \u00a0always exploring the in-between state in his works,\u201d says Ramanathan. \u201cThere are \u00a0foetal forms, blind poets and figures in the grip of \u00a0existential angst. The paintings are steeped in a twilight zone, \u00a0marked by erasure and absence. The use of words and images reflect this state of in-betweenness, sense of incompleteness and non-linearity.\u201d<\/p>\n

The in-betweenness \u00a0of uncertain belonging, and acute nostalgia wrought by displacement are underlined by Zarina through Urdu verses and script in her works. Zarina\u2019s peripatetic life unleashed \u00a0a pining for lost homes. Brought up in Aligarh, she moved to Lahore after Partition, then \u00a0travelled across the world with her diplomat husband, before settling in New York. \u00a0She cured her homesickness \u00a0through aesthetic recreations of bygone addresses. By deploying \u00a0geometrical abstraction that often evokes Indo Persian architecture, as reflected in silhouettes of stepwells, arches, niches and courtyards, she constructed an architecture of dispossession. The power of the Indo-Persian tradition on her imagination is underscored by the use of Urdu text in works like Untitled (Map of Delhi with poem by Mir) <\/em>(2010), where couplets by Mir Taqi Mir are superimposed on a veiny, \u00a0abstract aerial map of the city.<\/p>\n

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(Zarina Hashmi, \u201cUntitled (Map of Delhi with poem by Mir)\u201d, Woodcut and text printed on Nepalese handmade paper and\u00a0 mounted on arches cover buff paper Sheet size: 21 x 19 inches, Image Size: 13.5 x 12.5 inches, Year 2010,\u00a0Image courtesy\u00a0Gallery Espace)<\/p>[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.27.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.27.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.27.4″ _module_preset=”default” max_width=”700px” module_alignment=”center” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”]

One of the couplets is Mir\u2019s famous response to the upstarts of Lucknow who chided him to name his fallen hometown: \u201cDelhi that was once a select city in the world, where only a chosen lived of every trade\/The heavens looted it and left it desolate , I am the citizen of that ruined place.\u201d To non readers of \u00a0Urdu, the serpentine lines of the city map echo and merge with the undulating Nastaliq to form filigrees of memory and desire. \u00a0<\/p>\n

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Travels with Rani (Diptych)<\/em><\/p>\n

(Zarina Hashmi, Travels with Rani (Diptych), intaglio printed in black on Arches Cover buff paper, Image size: 14.5 x 13 inches, Sheet size: 24 x 20 inches, Year 2008, Image Courtesy Gallery Espace)<\/p>[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.27.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.27.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.27.4″ _module_preset=”default” max_width=”700px” module_alignment=”center” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”]

The choice of Urdu is deliberate for artist Baaraan Ijlal, for whom Urdu is not a decorative motif. \u00a0Ijlal\u2019s father is the \u00a0Urdu poet \u00a0Ijlal Majeed and her childhood was spent immersed in Urdu\u00a0newspapers, literary magazines, her parents\u2019collection of Urdu poetry and novels. She often uses Urdu couplets in her narrative-figurative works. \u201cThe use of Urdu in my work \u00a0is instinctive but also intentional, a way of resisting the slow fading of Urdu script from public life since Partition,\u201d Ijlal says. \u201cWhen viewers cannot read the script, the experience of exclusion is not just formal, it is historical, it mirrors the condition of the language.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her works often fuse myths and socio-political realities. The lines of poetry are companions that hold secrets of the painted narratives. In Hostile Witness: Between Dusk and Dawn – Women, Land and Borders <\/em>(2024),\u00a0\u00a0<\/em>you see a teeming house being besieged by winged creatures with pistols as heads. The wall of the Pre-partition style house with arched windows has an inscription by Rajinder Manchanda Bani, \u201cKaise log the, chahte kya the, kyun wo yahaan se chale gae \/Gung gharon se mat kuch pucho, sheher ka naqsha dekho tum (What were those people like, what did they desire, why did they leave this place \/ Don\u2019t ask questions of mute houses, look towards the map of the city).\u201d The house is the \u2018hostile witness\u2019 that silently holds memories of historical events of displacement and rupture, much like the Urdu language. \u00a0Even when the Urdu lines are unread, their very presence becomes a way of remembering the flawed maps of places and languages. \u201cEven if Urdu could not be comprehended by someone, it can be encountered,\u201d says Ijlal. \u201cIt asks the viewer to stand with what cannot be fully possessed, just as we must learn to stand with grief, memory, with the stories of those who have been displaced and silenced.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Hostile Witness: Between Dusk and Dawn – Women, Land and Borders <\/em>(2024)
<\/u>(Baaraan Iljal, Women, Land, and Borders, Bombay\/Mumbai,\u00a0Acrylic on canvas, Wood\u00a072 x 48 inches\u00a02025, Image courtesy the artist)<\/p>[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.27.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” locked=”off”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.27.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.27.4″ _module_preset=”default” max_width=”700px” module_alignment=”center” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”]

While poetry is the apotheosis of language, the script is its basic unit. In 2004, Gulammohammed Sheikh had started Alphabet Stories <\/em>in response to \u00a0the authoritarian move to change children\u2019s text books that replaced the liberal and open-ended syllabus of children\u2019s books by a majoritarian, mono culture. \u201cIt brought about a drastic change in historical authenticities foisted with false narratives misleading and muddling young minds,\u201d says Sheikh. \u201cIn this work made in the \u00a0kaavad form, I used images of alphabets used in text books pasted in the form of collage, painted the alphabets and juxtaposed them with words both conventional and freshly coined by me\u201d \u00a0In the two water colours bearing identical titles (Alphabet Stories 1<\/em>(2000) and II (2004), \u00a0alphabets were painted with different words not used in text books, to indicate multiple meanings contained within each alphabet. The other one had images for alphabets slashed in black paint to indicate assault on the idea of alphabets.<\/p>\n

All these artists animate their works with words that must be perceived in singular ways. Dodiya’s works foreground complete, meaningful sentences and it is an extension of his figurative language. \u00a0Douglas’ use of non-linear fragments evoke a state of suspension and liminality, while Ijlal insists on an encounter with fractured history. On the other hand, Gulammohammed Sheikh harks back to the tradition of ragamala paintings for a sensorial experience. \u201cIn the traditional ragamala folios, text and image are usually combined with reference to a musical melody to be imagined by the viewer,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Poetry has been deployed not only for its textuality, and visuality, but also for its orality by artists like Shilpa Gupta and Amol Patil in their multimedia installations. Gupta believes that words can manifest, that poems are poultice or healing talismans. By whispering verses of banned poems into medicine bottles, Gupta in Untitled (Spoken Poem in a bottle) <\/em>\u00a0(2018 onwards)’released\u2019 potent, poetic charge in confined spaces. Her work \u00a0For, in your tongue, I cannot fit <\/em>(2017-18), \u00a0with a huddle of hundred microphones suspended over hundred metal rods, their tip perforating \u00a0the bowels of a white sheet overwritten with a poem by a poet who has been incarcerated, transformed the surrounding exhibition space \u00a0into a cathedral of sibilant, defiant voices.<\/p>\n

The resistant power of poetry is channelized by Patil , who repurposes \u00a0ballads from family archives with lyrical interventions by a contemporary powada performance group Yalgaar Sanskrutik Manch in Black Masks on Roller Skates <\/em>(2022) to build a strong narrative about Dalit rights. \u00a0Patil\u2019s grandfather was a powada shahir, a poet and troubadour who would travel across villages narrating epic tales and ballads lending voice to anti-colonial struggles and \u00a0socio-political \u00a0concerns of the Dalit community. \u00a0The performative work Black Masks on Roller Skates <\/em>(2022)\u00a0<\/em>features a video of sanitation workers moving across city roads on roller skates, sweeping floors carrying \u00a0a radio which plays powada songs by Vilas Ghogre, a prominent Dalit activist and poet.<\/p>\n

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Black Masks on Roller Skates<\/em>
<\/u><\/em>(Amol Patil, Black Mask on Roller Skates, Video still, Medium \u2013 Single Channel Loop Video, Duration \u2013 10:32 min, 2022, Image courtesy the artist)<\/p>[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.27.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” locked=”off”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.27.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.27.4″ _module_preset=”default” max_width=”700px” module_alignment=”center” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”]

\u201cThis performance memorialises my father\u2019s friend, a sanitation worker, who moved on skates, a broom in hand and a radio at his waist, while sweeping the street, every day,” says Patil. \u201cThe act of listening to music \u00a0is an individual protest against social injustice and alienation.\u201d Now, when powada performance at public places is prohibited by the state, Patil\u2019s works serve as a counter-memory and archive. His bronze sculptures portraying collated hands, misshapen bodies, faces with multiple pairs of eyes, in tandem with spoken and projected \u00a0poetry \u00a0fill the gallery space with oracular sounds and stories. The face with numerous pairs of eyes, his signature motif, recalls the famous Dalit poet Namdeo Dhasal\u2019s lines, \u201cThe living spirit looking out\/of hundreds of thousands of sad, pitiful eyes\/Has shaken me,\u201d (trans. by Dilip Chitre) whose poem \u2018Cruelty\u2019 Patil projects on bronze sculptures in the series The Shadow of Lustre (2024).<\/em>\u00a0The poem begins with the line, \u201cI am a venereal sore in the private part of language\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.27.4″ _module_preset=”default” width=”95%” max_width=”1600px” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” locked=”off”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.27.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/galleryespace.com\/artespace\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Shweta-_DSF2249_print.jpg” title_text=”Shweta-_DSF2249_print” show_in_lightbox=”on” align=”center” _builder_version=”4.27.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.27.4″ _module_preset=”0a6c4baa-304e-458e-9003-bb7edad6cc4b” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” hover_enabled=”0″ sticky_enabled=”0″]

The Shadow of Lustre<\/em><\/p>\n

(Amol Patil, The Shadow of Lustre, Bronze, video installation, light bulb, handmade\u00a0<\/p>\n

60 x 25 x 10 cm (23 \u215d x 9 \u215e x 4 in.), 2024, Image courtesy the artist)<\/p>[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.27.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.27.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.27.4″ _module_preset=”default” max_width=”700px” module_alignment=”center” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”]

Mithu Sen treats language as an unnecessary nuisance. If poetry is the act of expressing, meaning-making \u00a0and thinking through language, Mithu Sen subverts the rules of language and poetic norms \u00a0to make \u2018un-poetry\u2019. \u00a0In I am a poet <\/em>(2013-14), an installation-performance piece, Sen displayed a book consisting of computer-generated, unreadable text. Readers were encouraged to embrace \u201cnonsense as resistance\u201d and formulate a secret, dream language stemming from the subconscious. The unintelligible utterances communicated through sound, expressive intensity and interplay of textured words and silence. \u00a0To further her project of spreading lingual anarchy, in 2014 Sen collected rejected poetry manuscripts of aspiring poets in Bangladesh and made an installation titled Batil-Kobitaloi [Poems Declined] (2014)<\/em>\u00a0with 1800 rejected poems and created painted artworks based on the typographical marks and edits found on the rejected manuscripts, such as cross-outs and editor’s notes. \u00a0From castaways these books are salvaged as carriers of artistic gestures. \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Poetry \u00a0can be read as body language in Dodiya\u2019s Anand with a book of poems <\/em>(2020-2022). Looking at the protagonist\u2019s resolute and unflappable gait, you feel as if a line or a stanza from the book of poems he is carrying has created a rustle of desire and reaffirmed a trajectory of thought. This is a painting of a film still from Hrishikesh Mukherjee\u2019s iconic film Anand<\/em>. \u00a0By featuring the backs of film stars in the series Dr. Banerjee in Dr. Kulkarni\u2019s Nursing Home and other paintings<\/em>\u00a0(2020-2022), Dodiya \u00a0relieves stars from the baggage of hyper-recognition and their backs become blank screens for projection of anonymous fantasies. Decontextualized from the filmic narrative, these film-stills \u00a0evoke their own account. The man can even be Dodiya (or any of the artists discussed above) who perhaps after reading a \u00a0poetry collection, has come to the aesthetic realisation that poems can be painted.<\/p>\n

<\/p>[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.27.4″ _module_preset=”default” width=”95%” max_width=”1600px” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” locked=”off”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.27.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/galleryespace.com\/artespace\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Shweta-Anand-with-his-book-of-poems.jpg” title_text=”Shweta-Anand-with-his-book-of-poems” show_in_lightbox=”on” align=”center” _builder_version=”4.27.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.27.4″ _module_preset=”0a6c4baa-304e-458e-9003-bb7edad6cc4b” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” hover_enabled=”0″ sticky_enabled=”0″]

Anand with a book of poems<\/em>
<\/u><\/em>(Atul Dodiya, ‘Anand with his book of poems’, 2020-2022, Oil on canvas, 60 x 78 inches, Image courtesy the artist)<\/p>[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section]\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Artist Atul Dodiya\u2019s reimagination of poet Arun Kolatkar\u2019s poems from Kala Ghoda poems (2014) poses the viewer with a dilemma \u2013 are the artworks to be seen or read? From The Rat-poison Man\u2019s Lunch Hour\u00a0to Pi Dog\u00a0and Breakfast Time at Kala Ghoda, long extracts of poems are reproduced with illustrative figures painted \u00a0in watercolour.(Atul Dodiya, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":324,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_FSMCFIC_featured_image_caption":"","_FSMCFIC_featured_image_nocaption":"","_FSMCFIC_featured_image_hide":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[3],"class_list":["post-654","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles","tag-current-edition"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/galleryespace.com\/artespace\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/galleryespace.com\/artespace\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/galleryespace.com\/artespace\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/galleryespace.com\/artespace\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/galleryespace.com\/artespace\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=654"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/galleryespace.com\/artespace\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":969,"href":"https:\/\/galleryespace.com\/artespace\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654\/revisions\/969"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/galleryespace.com\/artespace\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/324"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/galleryespace.com\/artespace\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=654"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/galleryespace.com\/artespace\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=654"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/galleryespace.com\/artespace\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=654"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}