Bengaluru | My encounter with sculptor Dimpy Menon’s dream whisperers

Dimpy Menon at her show ‘Dream Whispers’ in Bengaluru.
| Photo Credit: Murali Kumar K.

As always Lavelle Road in Bengaluru is busy. Impatient drivers tapping on horns, the whoosh of bikes and autorickshaws streaming on the narrow road hemmed in by lit-up shop windows and restaurants cause little explosions in my head. The burgeoning city burgeons even more on a Saturday evening. But within the empty white walls of Gallery Time & Space, there is respite. The empty white walls and the sculptures within stretch a palm towards the frenzied pace of the street below as if to say: leave us, thus.

The show is being mounted as I enter. Sculptor Dimpy Menon and her team move around assessing the space and its possibilities. The sculptures are still waiting to be assigned their designated space. But it doesn’t seem to chip away at the stillness. Amidst the hammers, pliers, strings and boxes, the dream whisperers have found their own isle of being. It is exactly this I had hoped to witness when I asked to preview the show before the actual opening.

‘Dream Whispers’ by Dimpy Menon
| Photo Credit:
Murali Kumar K.

I have been familiar with Menon’s body of work for over two decades now and have witnessed the rising arc of her artistic trajectory.

I think of Menon’s earlier sketches, paintings and bronzes and the sense of waiting they expressed. Each line captured the innate longing that comes with waiting. In the years thereafter, her bronzes became bigger and their energy that much more powerful. Even the aerial sculptures caught in mid-motion exuded a raw tensile strength. The sculptor and her creations had moved into a realm where ‘doing’ was supreme.

Drawing from nature

But this evening, I see a new dimension that has entered Menon’s artistic journey. So much of her art is drawn from nature and the body in motion. But now her work had progressed to being embodiments of calm. That doesn’t mean they are static. In fact, movement is still the leitmotif of her work. But this is a dynamic ease. I feel a flaring of the spirit as I spend time with each new piece. Some of the motifs are familiar and some are new. This is exactly how it ought to be in any artistic journey — the art and the artist share a path together.

‘Dream Whispers’ by Dimpy Menon
| Photo Credit:
Murali Kumar K.

Amidst the tall lotuses [or lotii as I prefer to call them] and unfurling ribbons and the birds always about to soar into the skies, the human forms speak a new story. They are no longer who they once used to be. 

The show is titled Dream Whispers and you can see why.

‘Dream Whispers’ by Dimpy Menon
| Photo Credit:
Murali Kumar K.

Each one of the dream whisperers are in a world of their own where self-realisation is sovereign. There is the narcissus-like man lying on his stomach and staring into the waters. He dreams, insular to everything happening around him. There is the majestic woman leaping into the air with two birds soaring off her palm. She is unconscious of scrutiny or impervious to it. 

‘Dream Whispers’ by Dimpy Menon
| Photo Credit:
Murali Kumar K.

The dangling couple, both separate and together, their bodies turning into each other. The sculptures are now no longer about waiting or doing. Instead there is to them calibrated emotions and a quiet acceptance. And an envious ability to find calm even in movement.

Chasing form and movement

Menon took to bronze at art college. Bronze isn’t an easy metal to work with and yet it became the medium that spoke to her best. She would tell me that everything about the lost wax casting process itself — the rigour it demanded, the physical strength it needed, the eye for detailing required to chase form and movement with the alloy — made it magical for her. 

Testament to that is the fact that Menon has had 27 solo shows around the world, been part of several group shows and her work is part of several prestigious collections. She was the first Indian sculptor to win the Lorenzo il Magnifico Bronze Award at the Florence Biennale.

I sit awhile and look at the sculptures. A taut neck tendon on a 140 kg sculpture that seems muscle and sinew and not bronze. The delicate hollow in the small of the back of a seated man. The exquisite curve of a bird’s wing. The sinister mask with stars emerging from the mouth. The sculptor is god capturing thought and movement in forever form.

‘Dream Whispers’ by Dimpy Menon
| Photo Credit:
Murali Kumar K.

In the morning, the sculptures will be mounted on ball and block. They will be seen to their best advantage. The heat of the room will throw a sheen on the bronze limbs as the guests move around. Muted conversation will drown the whispers of the soul.

But this evening, the dream whisperers beckon for me to follow them into their enchanted world. There is nothing sinister or insidious there. Just calm and a quiet content.

This is art at its best.

Dream Whispers is on till February 1 at Gallery Time & Space.

The writer is an author. Her last book was Hot Stage, third in the Borei Gowda noir series.