Give me red

Those familiar with Michelangelo's marbled-wonder Pieta, will shudder at Rekha Rodwittiya's oils-on-canvas version. Instead of holding the body of her crucified son, Mary spreads open a cloth carrying hand tools of torture. She's nowhere 'immaculate white', in flowy robes and a face weighed down with sorrow. This Mary looks you straight in the eye, her shabby tunic glowing like dying embers, as she sits between dismembered bodies and dead roses.

Raw, guttural imagery of this kind, peppered with metaphors, allegory, myth and legends dominate Baroda-based Rodwittiya's canvases in her ongoing solo show 'Songs from the Blood of the Weary' at the Jehangir Nicholson Art Gallery, Mumbai (till August 19). Through a blaze of reds, yellow and ochres, she dialogues about issues concerning India's women – gender politics, patriarchy, and unwanted male gaze. Here, the walls of a womb-like walk-in installation forms a macroscopic viewpoint of her beliefs. She built it for the Dialogues of Peace exhibition where along with 50 artists she was invited by the United Nations to commemorate their 50th anniversary 23 years ago.

About the relevance of the work today, and others in the room, she says "India continues to allow for a child, [like the Kathua rape victim], to remain unprotected from the criminalities of power. This exhibition acts as a reminder to us of where our alertness needs to be, and how important it is to confront issues of equal rights and female liberty," explains Rodwittiya, who recoils when told her women resemble the ones by the post-Impressionist Paul Gauguin. "I iconise the female figure by diagrammatising her body, so that it does not become a commodity for lustful consumption."

While her works paint a hopeless scenario for women's lib in India, she persists, unfazed. "I'm often asked what it's like to be born a woman in India – a country so steeped in patriarchy... My answer always is that I view myself as empowered. I see this as precious inheritance, not to be squandered, and accept the challenge to confront and resist the attempts that infringe my equality and freedom." Though she finds women artists in India overshadowed by the "boys club", she feels all hope is not lost as "thankfully many of our premier galleries have women at their helm…so amen to that!"