Rekha Rodwittiya

Last updated

Rekha Rodwittiya (born 31 October 1958 [1] ) is a contemporary Indian artist associated with the Baroda School. She is known for her allegorical and metaphoric narrative paintings depicted through the style of surrealism and magical realism. She conducts an art studio in Vadodara called The Collective Studio, jointly with her husband and artist Surendran Nair.

Biography

Rekha was born on 31 October 1958, in the city of Bangalore, Karnataka. [1] She grew up for the most part in the city of Baroda (later renamed to Vadodara), where her family moved to in 1967. [2] Rekha was the younger of two sisters and her parents were South India while she was looked after mostly by her mother as her father was an Indian air force pilot. [3]

She joined the fine arts academy of the Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda in 1976, at a time when the city of witnessing the emergence of a hipster culture and the rise of a number of pre-eminent contemporary artists such as Bhupen Khakhar, Gulam Mohammed Sheikh and Jyoti Bhatt . [2] In 1977, she married a friend from Thailand who was a foreign student at the university and had a child in the following year named Mithun. [3] Rodwittiya states that the marriage occurred with the expressed permission of her parents, and that she was diagnosed with infertility issues and recommended to conceive as soon as possible if she were to have a child. [4] The marriage broke down while she was pregnant which led to divorce and her becoming a single mother while still in college. [3] [4]

In 1981, she graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in painting and was enrolled in the Master of Arts programme for an year. Following her graduation, Rodwittiya also began working at a private studio run by Jyoti Bhatt. [2] She began painting independently with a series of small imaginary portrait, and was soon recognised as a talent. [2] [3] In 1982, the British Council granted her a fellowship to complete her Master of Fine Arts in painting at the Royal College of Art, London, which she earned in 1984. [3] Other than Bhatt, she was also mentored by the British artist Peter de Francia who was a professor at the Royal College and the Indian artist Nasreen Mohamedi, [2] who is considered as "India's greatest abstract artist" and was a faculty at the MS University of Baroda. [5] During this period, her parents began to take care of her son which allowed her to continue her education. [3]

On returning to India, Rodwittiya received a teaching appointment at the MS University of Baroda but it not renewed due to her outspoken feminist views which were considered controversial. She also met the artist Surendran Nair during this time, [3] who became a close friend of hers and eventually married her in 1985. [4]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda</span> Public university in Vadodara, Gujarat

Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, formerly Baroda College, is a public university in the city of Vadodara, Gujarat, India. Originally established as a college in 1881, it became a university in 1949 after India's independence. It was later renamed after its benefactor Maharaja Sayajirao Gaekwad III, the former ruler of Baroda State.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Raja Ravi Varma</span> Indian painter from Kerala (1848–1906)

Raja Ravi Varma was an Indian painter and artist. He is considered among the greatest painters in the history of Indian art. His works are one of the best examples of the fusion of European academic art with a purely Indian sensibility and iconography. He was known as the first modern Indian artist. Especially, he was notable for making affordable lithographs of his paintings available to the public, which greatly enhanced his reach and influence as a painter and public figure. His lithographs increased the involvement of common people with fine arts and defined artistic tastes among the common people. Furthermore, his religious depictions of Hindu deities and works from Indian epic poetry and Puranas have received profound acclaim. He was part of the royal family of erstwhile Parappanad, Malappuram district.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ratan Parimoo</span>

Ratan Parimoo is an art historian and painter of modern India who was a professor of Art History at the M.S. University in Vadodara.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gulam Mohammed Sheikh</span> Indian artist

Ghulam Mohammed Sheikh is a painter, poet and art critic from Gujarat, India. He was awarded the Padma Shri in 1983 and Padmabhushan in 2014 for his contribution in field of art.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">N. S. Bendre</span> Indian artist (1910–1992)

Narayan Shridhar Bendre was a 20th-century Indian artist and one of the founder members of Baroda Group Narayan Shridhar Bendre was born in Indore. He made a name for himself as a landscape artist. In 1992 he was awarded the Padma Bhushan.

The Faculty of Fine Arts, Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda is one of the major art colleges in India. It has a reputation for promoting a creative and individualist approach among its students, and has historically adhered to secularist, humanist, and modernist ideals.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">K. G. Subramanyan</span> Indian painter, sculptor, muralist, printmaker, writer and academic (1924-2016)

Kalpathi Ganpathi "K.G." Subramanyan was an Indian artist. He was awarded the Padma Vibhushan in 2012.

Jyotindra Manshankar Bhatt, better known as Jyoti Bhatt, is an Indian artist best known for his modernist work in painting and printmaking and also his photographic documentation of rural Indian culture. He studied painting under N. S. Bendre and K.G. Subramanyan at the Faculty of Fine Arts, Maharaja Sayajirao University (M.S.U.), Baroda. Later he studied fresco and mural painting at Banasthali Vidyapith in Rajasthan, and in the early 1960s went on to study at the Academia di Belle Arti in Naples, Italy, as well the Pratt Institute in New York. He was awarded the Padma Shri in 2019 and elected as a Fellow of the Lalit Kala Akademi in 2022.

Ranjitsinhrao Gaekwad was an Indian politician.

Bina Sarkar Ellias is a poet. She is editor, designer and publisher of International Gallerie, a global arts and ideas journal (www.gallerie.net) founded by her in 1997. She is also an art curator, having curated several important exhibits of renowned artists. https://mumbaimirror.indiatimes.com/opinion/city-columns/bina-sarkar-the-cave-woman/articleshow/59865389.cms

Surendran Nair is an Indian artist who works with watercolour, printmaking and oils and his works are inspired from surrealism and symbolism.

Somalal Shah was an Indian painter and art teacher. Born in Kapadvanj and educated in Bombay and Calcutta, he spent three decades painting and teaching art in Bhavnagar in Saurashtra, Gujarat.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anil Relia</span> Indian art collector (born 1957)

Anil Relia is an Indian art collector, known for his portrait collection. He has over 3000 portraits and his personal collection includes many miniature paintings, early photographs along with works of artists like Raja Ravi Varma, M. F. Husain, Hemen Majumdar, Bhupen Khakhar, Jyoti Bhatt, Haku Shah, K. G. Subramanyan, S.H. Raza, Thota Vaikuntam, Manu Parekh and many more.

Karuna Sukka is an Indian printmaker and painter from Telangana State who works with large-scale wood-cuts to make prints.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nilima Sheikh</span> Indian artist (born 1945)

Nilima Sheikh is a visual artist based in Baroda, India.

The GROUP 1890 exhibition was held from 20 to 29 October 1963 at Lalit Kala Akademi, Rabindra Bhavan in New Delhi, India. It was the only exhibition of the artist collective 'group 1890', hence the only existing record of the group's exhibition history in the 1960s contemporary art in India. The group was an entirely male association with 12 members which 'stood passionately and romantically for values of modernism that signaled change'. The members were Raghav Kaneria, M. Reddeppa Naidu, Ambadas Khobragade, Rajesh Mehra, Gulam Mohammed Sheikh, Jagdish Swaminathan, Himmat Shah, Jeram Patel, S. G. Nikam, Eric Bowen, Jyoti Bhatt, and Balkrishna Patel. All of which participated in this inaugural exhibition.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jayant Parikh</span> Indian artist

Jayant Parikh is an Indian artist, printmaker, and muralist. He is a student of N. S. Bendre, K. G. Subramanyan and Sankho Chaudhuri. He lives and works in Vadodara, India.

The Baroda Group refers to the artists involved with the Faculty of Fine Arts at Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, now known as Vadodara in Gujarat state of India. An experimental art school that drew artists of a variety of backgrounds, the Baroda Group offered an alternative to the nationalism associated with Santiniketan and the Bengal School.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jyotsna Bhatt</span> Indian ceramicist and potter (1940–2020)

Jyotsna Jyoti Bhatt was an Indian ceramist and potter. She first studied at and then for forty years taught at the Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jehangir Nicholson Art Foundation</span> Art museum in Mumbai, India

The Jehangir Nicholson Art Foundation (JNAF) is a private, not-for-profit organization located in Mumbai, Indian with its core interest in promoting the preservation, exhibition, education, and research of post-colonial Indian modern art. The collection is endowed by the personal collection of the late Jehangir Nicholson, comprising over 800 pieces of art across mediums from artists including M. F. Husain, Vasudeo S. Gaitonde, S. H. Raza, K. H. Ara, etc. The foundation is currently housed in the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya, managing the Jehangir Nicholson Gallery - the modern and contemporary art wing of the museum.

References

  1. 1 2 Fernando, Benita (9 November 2018). "Rodwittiya's female gaze". Livemint . Retrieved 24 November 2020.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 Ayaz, Sheikh (5 December 2018). "Rekha Rodwittiya: The Magical Realist". Open The Magazine . Retrieved 23 November 2020.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Milford-Lutzker, Mary-Ann (2002). "Five Artists from India: Gogi Saroj Pal, Rekha Rodwittiya, Navjot, Anupam Sud, Rummana Hussain". Woman's Art Journal . 23 (2): 21–27. doi:10.2307/1358704. ISSN   0270-7993. JSTOR   1358704 – via JSTOR.
  4. 1 2 3 Sarma, Ramya (14 June 2014). "Stories in paint". The Hindu . ISSN   0971-751X . Retrieved 24 November 2020.
  5. ↑ Jumabhoy, Zehra (1 February 2013). "Art | The line of control". Livemint . Retrieved 24 November 2020.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.