Spaces Vol 1 Is 6

“When I was a kid, elders would ask me whom I
wanted to be when I grew older, not what I wanted
to be,” recalls Ashmina Ranjit.
“I used to think, ‘What a stupid
question!’” Today, after achieving a
certain prominence in the field of art,
she is very much a force unto herself.
Oh yes, no one can doubt that Ashmina
is now a persona in her own right. The
twin snakes running up her nose to her
forehead is only a supporting physical
manifestation of a decidedly
individualistic personality. Naturally, as is
expected of an artist of unusual calibre,
she lets her non-conventional works
speak for themselves- in the processrevealing
much about the uniqueness of
Ashmina Ranjit.
Her snakes and the reason for them being
where they are could be discussed ad
nauseam but she, herself, attempts to
simply explain them away by saying that
she has always been passionately fond
of the reptiles. From an outsider’s point
of view, too much importance needn’t
be placed on this fetish-perhaps the artist
is only proclaiming her rebellious nature
in an artistic way.
But more important, and more interesting,
would be an insight into some of
Ashmina’s avant-garde works. Many still
remember her ‘Hair Warp-Travel through
Strand of Universe’ exhibition at NAFA
Art Gallery in 2000 when, in addition to
charcoal sketches of innumerable
strands of hair intertwined meticulously
to form crowning glories, on view was
also installation art in the form of huge
red braids of accouterments usually
related to meticulous hair-dos in Nepal.
Besides being an obvious novelty in
choice of subject, the artist, as she is
inclined to do, had a message to impart
as well. The gist of it being simply, that
woman’s hair is a powerful instrument
of feminine expression besides being a
liberating experience when in free flow.
“I am in love with freedom,” she declares.
“Total freedom,” she emphasizes. Maybe
that is why she wanted to be a pilot when
growing up, but soon enough recognized
that art was what was she was searching
Right: An eloquently descriptive early
work in which the artist clearly seems to
have been on the safe track.
SPACES SEP-OCT 2005 23