Her works create the definitive moment, carved from a boundless space and emblazoned in memory. Their presence ekes out the essential, the timeless, the moment of forgetting and remembrance. In Anjolie Ela Menon’s vast oeuvre on Masonite which ranges from liminal men and women, gods and goddesses of the popular, the retrieving of junk to create painted furniture stamped with her mark, the delicate moulding of Murano glass to create objects of everyday wonder and others, we have the underlying theme of the enduring presence of a reverent calm which yet is touched by the here and now of the world. In a remarkably individualistic act, defying conventional norms, Menon though influenced by artists like Husain and Amrita Sher-Gil and a student of the École des Beaux Arts in Paris, has not been influenced by the moderns in their universal credo or even attempted to reinvent indigenous aesthetics. She has ploughed her lonely furrow, learning frescoes at the Beaux Arts then travelling all over Europe to look at Byzantine and Romanesque art and also a plethora of popular art as well as the miniatures in India. In her imbibing of these traditions she was to create her own path of images which draw you in and return you to the world at the same time. Their aura emanates from these enmeshed dualities. Most of her portraits are frontal in the Romanesque manner which made her once travel to small churches in northern France and to Spain to seek their existence. The bold delineations of Romanesque forms were meant to create an impact and draw the viewer into their fold. In the works of Anjolie the images are wrapped in themselves, in a trance- like reverie which creates a moment of concentrated attention away from the world. The Byzantine and early Christian art which had also drawn her attention have a special aura which acted as transmitters to the other world. Her works transport you to a meditative silence, unlocking you from the world, and admitting you to a hallowed space which enables a re-engagement with the surrounding environment. Nestled among the exhibition works are some paintings from the artist’s personal collection which are on display and give the viewer a glimpse into the artist’s trajectory. Since the fifties the evocation of hidden truths in apparently simplified contours was part of Anjolie’s oeuvre. She had refurbished REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PRESENT the woman in her profane surroundings - from Helen in her stark nudity to the Mother and Daughter duo in their disarmingly intimate bodies we have the revealing aspects of the woman’s body being addressed by the woman. The woman sitting in melancholy solitude while monkeys pranced on the roof, or Dariba with the grazing goat manifest aspects of her form pent up with truncated life. But the flip side of this is also revealed in the Woman with Fruit where the sensuality of the woman’s form is evenly balanced by the basket of luscious fruits.