Stepping in Anju Dodiya’s spacious and sun-filled studio in the suburbs of Mumbai, is like being let in on a well-kept secret. Here, the artist spends most of her days and nights, working on large canvases and ‘mattress paintings’, breaking only for lunch and the essential afternoon nap. “I like being left alone with my thoughts, and well, some music playing in the background,” the artist shares.
Among the days and dreams, her ideas develop into pieces of “emotional theatre” on canvas, animated by watercolour and charcoal figures of women at their most vulnerable — thinking, wanting, stumbling and sleeping. Their stories grow in front of the artist like plants, inspired by the many worlds that inform her creative subconscious, be it cinema, poetry, old master paintings or everyday news reports.
In this BMW Artist Film, Dodiya speaks about the “great, pure freedom” of art — and its incomparable potential in unlocking the deepest parts of ourselves.
Anju Dodiya was born in 1964 in Mumbai and is represented by Chemould Prescott Road. The artist has been shown in multiple previous editions of India Art Fair.