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Shailee Mehta India, b. 1998
Birdwatchers // बुलबुल, 2021Oil on Canvas120 x 135 cm
47 6/25 x 53 3/20 in'Birdwatchers' started at a residency in Udaipur where the artist was staying in the middle of a farm on the outskirts of the city. It was deeply inspired by the..."Birdwatchers" started at a residency in Udaipur where the artist was staying in the middle of a farm on the outskirts of the city. It was deeply inspired by the overlap of the natural and the man-made, but also evolved into questioning the role of human beings as archivists of the natural world (hence the title). There is a conscious engagement with the conversation around wildness and it being antithetical to heteronormativity,
The work considers the act of watching, particularly the vulnerability of being watched and intends to subvert the male gaze through the presence of multiple female gazes.