In Sculptor's Notebook, originally written in 1985, the artist Pushpamala N evaluates the artistic practice that she had been developing until then.
Centred largely around themes of adolescence and womanhood, Pushpamala N's sculptures had won her the Sixth Triennale Award and the National Award. While the sculptures take centre stage, in this dissertation can be found a longing to move further towards performance, humour, and play-acting—themes that the artist would go on to develop over the following decades. Both an artist's statement and a notebook-format prophecy, Sculptor's Notebook charts the motivations, struggles, and desires of the artist's multi-medium practice.
Published here for the first time, Sculptor's Notebook was written as part of Pushpamala N's Master's in Sculpture at the Faculty of Fine Arts, Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda. The complete facsimile of this dissertation is accompanied by a recent interview with the artist by Nihaal Faizal and Sarasija Subramanian.
Born in Bangalore, 1956, Pushpamala N has been called "the most entertaining artist-iconoclast of contemporary Indian art". In her sharp and witty work as a photo- and video-performance artist, sculptor, writer, curator and provocateur, and in her collaborations with writers, theatre directors and filmmakers, she seeks to subvert the dominant cultural and intellectual discourse. She is known for her strongly feminist work and for her rejection of authenticity and embracing of multiple realities. As one of the pioneers of conceptual art in India and a leading figure in the feminist experiments in subject, material and language, her inventive work in sculpture, conceptual photography, video and performance have had a deep influence on art practice in India.
Starting off her career as a sculptor, Pushpamala N began using photography and video in the mid -1990s, creating tableaux and photo-romances in which she casts herself in various roles. Interested in history and the idea of cultural memory, she cites a wide range of references in her series of masquerades where she simultaneously inhabits and questions familiar frames from art history, photography, film, theatre and popular culture, thereby placing herself as the artist at the centre of social and political inquiry.
Pushpamala N lives and works in Bangalore after having lived for periods in different Indian cities. She exhibits widely in India and internationally, and speaks often at seminars and conferences.
