Of Fibre Deities And Many Voiced Design:
Mrinalini Mukherjee

Aparna Roy Baliga

Women as sculptors did not get the required visibility. The physical act of sculpting was mostly thought as that which belonged to the men, and the names of women sculpting were hardly found. Mrinalini Mukherjee’s journey as a sculptor started while she was doing her Postgraduation in painting and mural in Faculty of Fine arts, M.S.U, Baroda. She subverted the very masculine identity of sculpture, and questioned the usual notion of art of sculpting. The medium with which she started was hemp and sisal. She would weave and knot, all supposedly feminine processes. What was derogated as feminine and weak, and belied the idea of sculpture being solid was made strength. The other modernist exclusion was of the crafts which she also included in her practice of making these monumental pieces. She was initially interested in studying biology but gradually that interest waned off and her focus shifted to painting but the interest in the vegetal growth remained. The presence of monumental figures which Nilima Sheikh calls ‘fibre deities’ appear.