Anjolie Ela Menon has endured the worst pain that can be inflicted on an artist — to witness a precious work of art reduced to ruins. Sounding clearly disappointed, Menon shared her ordeal with a select audience at an event organised by Ladies Study Group in Kolkata recently. “I had gifted a 20x8 feet fibre glass mural for the Esplanade Metro Station in Kolkata. But to my dismay, it has been damaged severely and is gathering dust at the moment,” she rued about the painting whose estimated worth is pegged at a few crores.
The shocking reality would have gone unnoticed had she not a sent a photographer to take a picture of the mural for an upcoming book. “To my dismay, the photographer told me that he did not see the mural anywhere. A call to the then governor of West Bengal Gopal Krishna Gandhi led to the horrifying news that another painting had been hammered on top of it. My work bore the brunt of the destruction. Four years have passed since then, but the situation has not changed. The restoration work too has been caught in red tape. It was my gift to the people of Kolkata, but sadly, the authorities failed to appreciate it. I hope there is a concerted effort from the public to restore the painting to its original place and as it was,” Menon said.
The acclaimed artist has shifted the focus of attention to her recently released book Anjolie Ela Menon: Through the Patina. “The book is a pictorial illustration of my work over the last 55 years with essays on my work and life, authored by the famous art critic Isana Murti,” she said. An entire range of Menon’s work, considerable research and careful documentation over a period, has culminated in this volume.
For the artist, the inspiration behind her creations has been varied and sometimes come from unusual sources. “Once I laid my hand on an old medical book describing the human anatomy. It inspired me to create paintings depicting human forms and their anatomy, named the Open Hearts Series,” she said.
Early Christian art too had a substantial influence on her artistic sensibilities, said Menon. “Christ, the son of a carpenter, has a rugged face in my mind’s eye. It was from the 20th century that he was transformed into a blue-eyed blonde. The Divine Mother theme has recently caught my imagination and I am exploring it.” Sharing her perspective on the concept of the “female nude”, a subject she has frequently touched upon, she says, “There is a sense of empathy as I am not looking at it with a male gaze.”
Ask her to share her anecdotes on the chapter titled the Goat Pe-ople, and she responds,. “My studio is situated in the congested Nizam-uddin basti of Delhi and these goats wander there. They move about on their own free will, and sometimes they even end up eating my drawings. So one fine day I asked their owner to compensate for the damage. He stood patiently with his herd while I brush stroked the canvas.”
The crow too has been the Padma Shri awardee’s muse, “When I lived in Mumbai, a crow used to regularly perch on my apartment’s balcony. I just had to cage him in on my canvas!”
Speaking about the Chair Series, Menon said, “Great things in art happen by happy accident. I was visiting Chennai and couldn’t find a canvas, and that was when a friend of mine suggested that I paint on a chair. That moment gave birth to my work on chairs. The series was exhibited during the much talked about Musharraf and Vajpayee meet in 2001. As we know, the bilateral meet did not work out. So, two chairs named after them were placed looking away from each other, symbolising their disagreement.”
As for herself, Menon said, “I am a compulsive painter. After all, I have been painting for the last 58 years.”