It is called Inside Out. And once you see the work, you will know why. Her art forms are unconventional and her artistic sensibilities are way beyond ordinary. It will surprise you to meet this simple girl who is a visionary. The moment I walked into Triveni Kala Sangam, the stark red on my right forced me to walk into the gallery. What I witnessed was brilliant.
The red sprawling path with spikes at the far corner of the gallery entices you to step in and even before you can grasp it all the red spiky leathery insects crawling from the floor to the wall make you jump! The red hot stilettos with thin spikes stare you right in the face and if by then you really haven’t understood it all, there’s the bullet with spikes for a seat!
This, for you all, is artist Rita Prasad! The petite girl with girl-next-door looks, without any airs about the huge art forms, ‘assemblage’ as she calls them, is as clear about her perspective, as sharp is her art. The artist, as I would call her, is still growing but if this is the embryonic stage, you can imagine the peak. She is someone, whose work I can easily imagine being installed at some international museum or an airport Terminal.
The exhibition is called Inside out and if I am not wrong in comprehending it all, the collective pieces are a vision of life from her perspective. The colour red, as I would put it, is what life’s attractions are; the comfort of a bed, the luxury of stilettos, the need for speed on a bike and the fears that crop (as insects) in life, all with their own hardships that she has expressed with spikes and all the allure it brings that she has expressed through red-leather. In fact, the path that she has created leading upwards has a pattern of spikes, denoting the unexpected and the expected turn of events, insecurities and challenges and yet the ever growing need of moving upwards in life.
I like her use of red for the allure that life brings, our own greed for wanting everything and the spikes that say despite the pain that material things bring along with them, we still want it all!
“I wasn’t really fond of red in my initial growing years. It is only after I completed my Masters and started to work that I grew the fondness for it,” says Rita, who grew up in the beautiful and clean Bokaro Steel City where she completed her education with a Masters in Arts and studied sculpture from MSU before moving to New Delhi in 2002. She teaches Art in St Paul’s school, Hauz Khas and is dedicatedly following her passion despite a hectic schedule.
Her exhibition is on display at Triveni Kala Sangam, New Delhi till December 7, 2015 and she can be reached out at ritaprasad7@gmail.com.
