Indian photographer's exhibition features nudes representing Shakti'

Photographer Bandeep Singh’s ongoing exhibition in Mumbai features nudes representing Shakti, the feminine creative power. Can a strong concept and refined treatment elevate this from being just another nude exhibition? Kareena N Gianani thinks so

Like many women, I am quite wary of works of nude art and photography that claim to be ‘aesthetic’ or ‘bring out the inner sanctity of the female form’. It isn’t that the female form cannot render itself to new, interesting and, most importantly, non-sexual depictions. But ask any woman who can put that niggling doubt into words — how often does the artist’s gaze border on voyeurism, contrary to the noblest of intentions, if there are any to start with?

So, when photographer Bandeep Singh claimed that his ongoing exhibition, Gaia’s Song, was an attempt to move away from “overt associations” with the female gender, I was sceptical. Gallery Art & Soul at Worli in central Mumbai is hosting nude photographs that try to depict the feminine power. He also uses an earthen pot for its close association with the ideas of the womb and the seed vessel, bija patra, where life originates. Singh worked with three models to come up with these over a period of 10 years.
But is it even possible to dissociate the gender in an exhibition that works with nudes? Singh tries to explain what he had in mind.

“In 1995, I reviewed a book on nude photography and trashed it. Something didn’t feel right. Then, it struck me that the photographer’s gaze had irked me,” he says. Our gaze, when it comes to the female form, is dictated by the West, explains Singh. An “attractive” female form is either the anorexic model on the ramp or a magazine cover, or the voluptuous blonde on billboards.

What strikes Singh as most appealing is the tribhanga posture, where the body is curved at the neck, waist and the knees in a gentle ‘S’ shape. “Most Indian temples have the women standing in this fluid, almost languid, pose. It isn’t sexual, it just comes so naturally to the Indian woman, and is also the most expressive.”

Sensuality and spirituality
Singh says it became his quest to understand how something spiritual could be so sensual. Hindu mythology, he points out, makes no distinction between sensuality and spirituality. Around 2000, Singh was introduced to the art and movements of Chandralekha, the iconoclastic dancer and choreographer who passed away in 2006. Chandralekha fused Bharatanatyam with martial arts like Kalarippayattu.

She celebrated Shakti, the powerful female principle, and her dance was often explicit and reminiscent of the erotic sculptures of Khajuraho temples. “I didn’t mean to ape her form, but it was embedded in my subconscious mind…it had the same influence as reading a book you love.” Singh wanted to explore the concept of prakriti, the basic matter formed by Shakti, through which all forms of life are expressed. The title of this project, Gaia’s Song, comes from the word gaia — the Greek name given to the idea of prakriti.

Like Chandralekha’s dance, Singh’s photographs bring out various forms of Shakti - the photograph titled Lajja Gauri has a woman sitting in the child-bearing posture with her face hidden behind an earthen pot, depicting Parvati when she represents fertility and abundance. A pair of photographs titled Purnamidah and Purnamidam depict Draupadi as she peers into the akshaya patra to find food for Krishna in the Mahabharata. Another photograph depicts the Sri Yantra — a yantra formed by nine interlocking triangles that surround a central point. The Sri Yantra represents the union of the masculine and feminine concepts.

Light and shade

“This exhibition has been called pornographic by some. But when you work in the nude, you have to be prepared for the fact that some will always see it as a means to titillate,” says Singh, whose artistic use of shadow and light focus attention on the concepts more than the nudity. And it isn’t as if Singh’s models are hiding behind the darkness either — they seem unfettered in their postures.

“The day my models’ fathers came up to me and appreciated the way we had worked together, I knew I needn’t be afraid of criticism,” says Singh. Nude photography, he adds, can be a difficult medium, because you work with subjects that breathe and feel. “Much of the guts for Gaia’s Song came from my earlier project, Antarghat, where I had photographed nudes to depict the female grace.” Singh had sent those photographs to feminist writers like Urvashi Butalia, who, he says, was initially wary. “But she wrote back saying she was relieved to see the female body articulated respectfully. I knew I had done the ‘right’ thing then.”

I look at a photograph of a woman bent over her knees in front of the earthen pot. Singh points out that it is a phallic symbol — something I wouldn’t have noticed if it hadn’t been pointed out. Viewing these photographs is much like giving an inkblot test — you see only what you really want to see.

Gaia’s song is an ongoing exhibition till November 30 at Gallery Art and Soul, Worli.