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Anjolie Ela Menon
Anjolie Ela Menon
Anjolie Ela Menon took up art while still in school, and, by the time she was fifteen, had already sold a couple of paintings. Finding the J.J. School of Art academically stifling, in 1959, at the age of twenty, Menon departed India to study art in Europe. While at the Ecole Nationale des Beaux-Art in Paris, she began to experiment with a muted palette of translucent colors, which she created by the repeated application of oil paint in thin glazes.
Painting on a hardboard, Menon enhanced the finely textured surface of her paintings by burnishing the finished work with a soft dry brush, creating a glow reminiscent of medieval icons. It is extremely difficult to compartmentalize Menon’s work, not only because she has been painting for so long, but because of the extreme changes that her oeuvre has constantly undergone. The body of work she has produced bears testament to her disdain for categorization.
She says “I am neither a didactic nor narrative painter. I am hardly concerned with events, though I like to lay my people bare – I like to bare them a bit beyond what is decent, sometimes ripping open a chest to reveal the heart beating within. Of course, there are many who have identified with the women I paint, especially those who are trapped or sitting alone on a chair, or those innocent ones with a newly awakened sensuality, and those who are waiting."
Menon was awarded the Padma Shri, one of India’s highest civilian honors, by the Government of India in 2000.
Anjolie Ela Menon took up art while still in school, and, by the time she was fifteen, had already sold a couple of paintings. Finding the J.J. School of Art academically stifling, in 1959, at the age of twenty, Menon departed India to study art in Europe. While at the Ecole Nationale des Beaux-Art in Paris, she began to experiment with a muted palette of translucent colors, which she created by the repeated application of oil paint in thin glazes.
Painting on a hardboard, Menon enhanced the finely textured surface of her paintings by burnishing the finished work with a soft dry brush, creating a glow reminiscent of medieval icons. It is extremely difficult to compartmentalize Menon’s work, not only because she has been painting for so long, but because of the extreme changes that her oeuvre has constantly undergone. The body of work she has produced bears testament to her disdain for categorization.
She says “I am neither a didactic nor narrative painter. I am hardly concerned with events, though I like to lay my people bare – I like to bare them a bit beyond what is decent, sometimes ripping open a chest to reveal the heart beating within. Of course, there are many who have identified with the women I paint, especially those who are trapped or sitting alone on a chair, or those innocent ones with a newly awakened sensuality, and those who are waiting."
Menon was awarded the Padma Shri, one of India’s highest civilian honors, by the Government of India in 2000.
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