Rini Dhumal: In the Garden

Born in 1948 in Bengal, Rini Dhumal later took her Masters from the Faculty of Fine Arts, MSU, Baroda. She continues to live and work there as Professor and Head of the Painting Department, and is married to another master printmaker on the faculty, P. D. Dhumal.

In her art Rini Dhumal has had an obsession with portraying the Devi (a Sanskrit word for goddess), and she often has explored the strengths and frailties of the feminine presence within the Indian household. Her Indian women are most often matriarchal, lonely, but powerful. On more than one occasion Dhumal's "Devis" take on the form of the avenging and wrathful goddess Durga, a deity held in reverence throughout India but which has particularly strong associations with Bengal.

In the book on Dhumal's art called Rooted Landscapes (edited by Ina Puri and published by Mapin), much is made of the artist's Bengali roots, and the isolation and emotional pain suffered by Indian women who perform the role of the eternally dependable mother. Against this background the six-colour linocut In the Garden takes on a meaning beyond what can be an initial impression of whimsicality.

This is more than just a Cheshire Cat lying smug and self-satisfied. Visually there is reference to the oft-reproduced images of a cat with prawn that have become icons of Bengali Kalighat painting. The fish in this image lies strangely out of water, not in the cat's mouth as in the traditional Kalighat pat, but seemingly dragged to the garden for a later feline lunch. We too, as viewers, seem to have been transported to near the garden floor, and catch a glimpse of a woman lying morose and disconnected among the inhabitants of this micro-world.

Is it the lady of the house, come for a much needed escape into the still-walled tranquility of the family estate? Or is it a self-portrait of the artist? What I love about this print is the way it lures you in with bright colours and childlike imagery, but leaves you with a sense of discomfort and unease.