In her second solo in Delhi, Milburn Cherian shows her characteristic style of people and possessions living in tight spaces on her artwork. In her 80 works, titled Living Between the Times 2020, Cherian, a Mumbaikar, who has had solo shows in Kolkata, London, and group shows across the world, talks of how displacement is one of the major themes, apart from suffering and healing.
For instance, “Outside The City Walls,” done in 2011, shows “people having to move with families and all their belongings in the hope of seeking shelter elsewhere,” she says. “The light in the gateway is to give some hope to their plight and separation from the new life they look forward to.” Her work also has the stain-glass-like quality of a church window.
“Maybe one had a premonition about the crisis (Delhi riots),” she adds, speaking about how, in the post-Babri Masjid demolition riots, her husband, E. Cherian, an interior designer, helped Muslim artists stay safe: “He hid them in his car.”
Milburn Cherian | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
Uma Nair, an art curator and critic who introduces the show to visitors through an essay, says Cherian’s work has always been about the people: “To look at Milburn's paintings is to see a picture from a Shakespearean tragedy. Just as Shakespeare’s histories were crowded with ordinary people making or witnessing history, mingling the high drama of politics with earthy tales, in the same way Milburn re-imagines narratives as tumultuous, abundant, and resonantly human.”
Her paintings “Village Resettled”, “The Healing”, “Give Ear To My Prayer”, “Life Goes on”, “Feed The Hungry”, and “Broken Bridges” best show the parables of the poor and the oppressed.
“Many of my works depicts the human condition, obviously manmade. I paint because I am well aware of how selfishness and greed has kept this country divided and in constant turmoil,” says Cherian.
The works on display, most acrylic on canvas, and some watercolours,measure about 14x12 inches, while some like “Tsunami”, “Sienna Earth” and “The Healing”, spread out to 61 inches.
“I like detailing,” says Cherian, who can take upto 11 months on a single work. Life was sometimes a struggle, especiallysince she lost her parents at 18. Though an NID grad, she calls herself self-taught. She grew up reading Asterix and was inspired by Pieter Brueghel the Elder, when her sister gave her a book on the Flemish printmaker, when she was 27.
Visual Art Gallery, India Habitat Centre, 10 a.m.-8 p.m.; on until March 7, 2020