“She used to wear the typical starched white chatta mundu, mekka mothirams on her ears, and a gold rosary and a black scapular around her neck. Nowadays, hardly anyone wears these,” says Elizabeth Davis of her work ‘Ammamma’, inspired by her grandmother.
The work is on display at the Muscat-based artist’s maiden solo show, ‘Interwoven’, at David Hall in Fort Kochi. It offers a different perspective on Kerala, where she recreates common images of the State using various techniques such as weaving, paper folding, burning, photography and painting. The result is refreshingly different.
In ‘Kalavandi’ (Bullock carts), a 20x16-inch mixed media on canvas, a print of a bullock cart pulled by a pair of bulls is fragmented, mixed and matched, to appear as many bulls and carts and wheels. “This adds to the forward movement of the cart and there is a feeling of kinetic energy. The mix of mud tracks, trees and wheels also add to the swaying bumpy movement one gets while sitting in the cart. These carts, from my childhood, are now rarely seen,” says the artist, turning nostalgic.
