An autobiographical journey

Exhibiting the interplay between words and visuals, a solo show by artist Renuka Rajiv critically chronicles and comments on matters of sexuality, gender, physicality and notions of family and relationships via personal narratives.

"The Future Is Not My Gender" is a multidisciplinary exhibition, showing different renditions of fabric and paper using drawings, paper maché, tie-dye and embroidery. It is on at the Vahdera Art Gallery at New Delhi  till August 18.
It includes a large body of textile and embroidery works, sculptures, and twenty four monotypes selected from a larger series of three hundred prints.

The fabric works are mostly made with old garments of the artist's family and friends. "This is a moment in a long-term exploration of expressing the aspects of my reality that are outside the material world," the Bengaluru-based artist said about the exhibition.

Rajiv described the prints as a "cathartic series" made while living in Melbourne. Some drawings also weave visuals with verbal interjections -- sharp observations around gender and sexuality within the larger social context.

"With a strong inclination towards the spontaneously created "hand-made" works, the exhibition accommodates the imaginative, observational and autobiographical," artist Renuka Rajiv said in a statement.

Rajiv, who narrates not verbally but visually, says the "need for the visual arises from a need to communicate, but this need to communicate remains outside the realm of verbal languages".

Rajiv was the recipient of the Emerging Artist Award (EAA) 2016, awarded by the Foundation for Indian Contemporary Art (FICA) in collaboration with Pro Helvetia, the Swiss Arts Council. 

The exhibition is a culmination of the award process including a three-month residency in Switzerland in 2017.