Chandigarh: A daughter sews together struggles of her mother on canvas

By:
Swati Bhan
CHANDIGARH: She grew up watching the daily struggle of her mother, Gurmeet Kaur. Down the years, she weaved it into an artist's expression to tell that story. In her maiden exhibition, titled 'Stitch in time', Rajinder Kaur takes you through the journey of a struggle she grew up with.
The sounds of sewing machines and the roll of threads are some of the imprints that were there in her mind and that is what you get to see in the prints as well.With her specialisation in graphic prints, Kaur has displayed 40 of her artworks in this exhibition, which was inaugurated on Thursday and will be on till March 18 at the Punjab Lalit Kala Academy (PLKA). One of the frames entitled, 'Beginning to end of a thread life', Kaur depicts the role of a thread roll from sunrise to sunset .
Artist Rajinder Kaur
"For my mother, stitching and the sewing machine was a compulsion, as that was one of the primary sources of income for our family. Most of the frames are a reflection of what I have seen, the scissors, the importance of sewing machine, the clothesline...'' said Rajinder. A pass out of the Government College of Art in Chandigarh, she has been a recipient of several awards and scholarships, including the Manjit Bawa scholarship sponsored by the PLKA.
A look through the exhibition gives you an impression of the closeness of the theme to her life. "It is my mother's journey that I have visualised in the graphic prints. I have experimented with the shapes and the colours and the printing," said Rajinder.
For instance, in one of the frames, she highlights the measuring tape, an important part of stitching. But, instead of the mundane measuring tape, the graphic print visualised by Rajinder goes on to display the graphic visualization and the molding that it takes when it is in use. The frames also have a slide of Rajinder as a student amid the ideas of tailoring, as a profession and the clothesline that hung up in hangers ready for sale. A journey reflected in prints. Rajinder proposes to host more such exhibitions taking the journey of her mother through her works.