BENGALURU: A woman, bronze-skin gleaming, is poised with one foot on a round stone and the other in the air as two little birds lift off from the palm of her hand. Frozen in a moment of lightness and movement, it almost appears as if, at any moment, she could exhale a foggy breath onto the birds and take flight right alongside them. This towering sculpture, 9 feet high, is one of the highlights of seasoned Bengaluru-based artist, Dimpy Menon’s upcoming exhibition titled Dream Whispers at Gallery Time and Space, Lavelle Road.
Set to be displayed alongside 17 other sculptures, all faceless and made of bronze – the aim, according to Menon, is to capture moments of emotion entirely through the body’s fleeting movements. “In my mind, I can see the eyes, I can see the nose, and each of their faces has different expressions. Then it gets into the body, expressing joy, a feeling of freedom, or something else.
The whole body in this form conveys what I’m trying to say,” says Menon. She adds, “I feel that the human body is the pinnacle of all creations – it’s so well balanced and the proportions are beautiful, so I don’t distort it. What I have done is try to get the essence of the form. I’m invested in understanding the whole body and its slight nuances and changes. What a little turn of the head, twist of the body or twist of the waist can convey.”
With this collection of sculptures, Menon, the first Indian sculptor to win the Lorenzo il Magnifico Bronze award at the Florence Biennale, has been inspired by moments spent in close company with nature. This connection with nature is reflected in the only other materials she uses apart from bronze – ethically gathered wood and stone – which are incorporated into the world around her bronze figures as a base, a ball, a pedestal or something similar.
Working with bronze using the traditional lost wax method, is not an easy process, involving several steps like making the figure out of clay, creating a wax-lined plaster of Paris mould around it and then pouring molten bronze at 1,300 degree Celsius into it.
Despite this, and more than a month of work going into making a single four-foot-tall sculpture, Menon wouldn’t change a thing. “The whole process of working is really time consuming and arduous but I don’t like to show that in the work. I want that figure to seem like it was made effortlessly,” says Menon.
After six months of work, the time has come to unveil her creations and Menon hopes viewers leave feeling joy and hope, something she says is much needed now more than ever. She says, “I want to communicate a sense of joy and for a few moments, that they’ve been transported into a less difficult life full of wonder.”
(The exhibition will be open to view from January 12 to February 1 between 11am to 7pm)