Wakefield, U.K.
“Unbound Forms” (on view through November 1, 2026) provides a rich and exhilarating context for a major retrospective of Mrinalini Mukherjee’s work, presenting it alongside sculptures by four earlier pioneering women artists from India and Bangladesh. Works by Mrinalini Mukherjee (1949–2015), Meera Mukherjee, Leela Mukherjee (Mrinalini’s mother), Novera Ahmed, and Pilloo Pochkhanawala come together to tell a rather different story from that recently put forth in “A Story of South Asian Art: Mrinalini Mukherjee and her Circle” (Royal Academy of Arts, London, 2025–2026), where male relatives and teachers dominated a narrative firmly framed by formal pedagogy, particularly the pioneering art school founded by Rabindranath Tagore in Santiniketan.
The present exhibition takes a more open and creative approach. Though the pedagogic framework remains, it is referenced more lightly, and any implied hierarchy is greatly flattened. Here, Mrinalini Mukherjee’s work appears in tandem with that of her female peers, illustrating a more organic and generous relationship across practices.
Everywhere connections and networks are important, and yet nothing is forced. Taking just one example, Pochkhanawala’s drawings clearly resonate with works by Barbara Hepworth in the permanent collection. Rather than belabor the point, however, the curators simply hung the drawings with a view line into that gallery and without further comment. It is a beautifully light touch.
The generosity of these sculptors is not difficult to find. Between 1986 and 1990, Meera Mukherjee worked with unemployed carpet makers in north Bengal and Muzaffarpur, turning embroidery designs into carpets and underlining her firm belief in collaboration. She also collaborated with women in rural communities to make kantha embroidery.
Mrinalini Mukherjee herself worked with a variety of materials, though she is best known for her hemp sculptures. Inspired by macramé craft traditions, her laborious knotting techniques meant she could only produce one or two sculptures in this vein each year: Adi Pushp II (First Flower), for instance, was made across 1998 and 1999. The hanging sculpture Pakshi (Bird) (1985) is larger than human scale.
In 1996, after Mukherjee undertook a residency at the European Ceramic Work Centre (ECWC) in the Netherlands, she turned her attention to large-scale ceramics, notably the “Blooms” series. Often referencing botanical and anatomical forms, these ceramic works create an uneasiness, resulting from their scale and blurring of individual identities and meanings. Earthbloom (1996) elides the idea of a flower in bloom with blooming or blossoming sensuality. Fond of experimenting with glazes, Mukherjee used the toxic and unpredictable chromium oxide here to great effect.
In the early 2000s, she moved into bronze, using the lost-wax process, sculpting and texturing surfaces using dental tools and plants. Even in these works, she retains a sense of fluid and unbound form. In late bronzes such as Emergent III (2007) and Forest Flame IV (2009), she returns to her youth for inspiration and the Flame of the Forest tree from Santiniketan. The trunk-like central column and flame-like petals approximate this sacred tree in full bloom, light playing on the bronze to wonderful flickering effect. Evidence, if it were needed, that nature remained her primary interest and influence throughout her 40-year-long career.
