Work in Progress

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Gallery BMB gets a shot of estrogen with Her Work is Never Done, an exhibit that opens today and will run through February and March, featuring the works of 26 female artists, including photographers and milliners, architects and painters.

While the works - sculptures, canvasses, video footage, mobiles and various other kinds of installations - revolve principally around women and their issues, they also embody fresh viewpoints and are far more complex than the usual brand of bra-burning feminism.

Giant Lips, Quirky Headgear and a Hidden Baby

Aishwarya Laxmi’s eye-catching canvasses are the first things you see when you walk in the door. These psychedelic collages made from photographs of Brazilian transvestites, painted and super-imposed with other images like exaggerated lips, huge eyes, a little hatchback, an iguana, a porcelain toilet, a flower-shaped ring on which a bee feeds. Luridly colored and larger than life, they are disturbing, hypnotic and beautiful all at the same time.

Shilpa Chavan, who designs hats and other accessories under the Little Shilpa brand, shows the sculpture of a woman wearing a backlit skirt that hides a baby. She’s embellished with a jumble of household items, including plastic combs and sweepers, kitchen strainers and ribbons. On her head sit a bunch of steel rotors that turn ominously, and she’s zipped into a corset of sagging boobs and pregnant tummy, her features hidden behind a black veil. All the clichés of female incarceration, but delivered with an unconventional twist.

P.G. Wodehouse and PG 13

Also noteworthy are Leena Kejriwal’s “Kolkata Indulging” artworks, a series of backlit paintings that depict typically Bengali scenes - a well-rounded, smug lady with keys tied to her sari pallu; a babu walking a dog called Tommy, the pictures of a popular Bengali seductress and a Ferragamo ad projected in the background; a horse carriage clomping along with shoes hanging from its rear - but also seem like they’re straight out of a P.G. Wodehouse novel.

There are many more. An installation of glossy eggs trapped inside a tangle of wire by Nisha Ghosh sits in the main room, while the back portraits of four women in starched kanjivaram sarees, jasmine flowers in their hair, line the wall of a smaller space on the side. In yet another section, a mix of (sometimes explicit) posters and video installations by Blank Noise, an organisation against eve teasing, are displayed.

Clockwork Orange

It’s almost too much to take in during one visit. We suggest you go when you have a couple of hours to spare, armed with an open mind and the seriously good orange rinds dipped in chocolate from Sleight of Hand, the bakery across the street. You’ll find that Her Work is Never Done is definitely one of the most interesting “works in progress” that the city has to offer right now.

Getting there: Gallery BMB, Queens Mansion, GT Marg, Fort, call 2200 0061 or visit www.gallerybmb.com.