Schneider Museum of Art
Sosa Joseph Needlework
Sosa Joseph Blessed Fruit
Sosa Joseph's Misfit
Intimate Revelations
International Women's Exhibition (continued: Page 6)
Sosa Joseph
Sosa Joseph earned her diploma in painting from Ravi Varma College of Fine Arts, Mavelikkara in 1995 and went on to get her post graduate diploma from MS University, Baroda in 1998. She currently lives and works in Kochi, Kerala, India.
I only saw the artist’s work by looking at printed reproductions of her paintings, yet the images are so vivid and carry such energy that I felt as if I could read them “loud and clear,” as if I had known her for a long time. My rational mind however, ran interference and directed me to wait until I heard from the artist herself or from her dealer who is familiar with both the person and the work.
I decided to write my impressions down and wait for evidence to arrive from India that would confirm or deny them. What I read in Sosa’s paintings were images of conflict, of yearning, of reading for freedom and fulfillment—a sensual woman’s plea in a sensual culture which teaches women to repress the very sensuality so clearly evident in its temple sculpture.
I sensed warm nights bathed in moonlight and perfumed by exotic flowers while waking dreams yearned for expanding horizons, physical and intellectual. Disrobed bodies and sliced-open, lush, tropical fruit, alluded to desires and inhibitions about to be tested. Freedom was just around the corner, but not yet in hand. Freedom, such a relative word defined only by rules we learn and need to break. Vibrant colors, tactile textures and feelings, once acknowledged are hard to tame.
A few weeks later, Sosa’s dealer Dorrie Younger of Kashi Gallery sent us her words about the artist: “Sosa’s work visualizes frustrations regarding the relationship between the sexes that have endured for centuries and how they are relevant today within local, regional and universal spheres. Her work is representational of the rising consciousness of the barriers women must overcome in order to assert that they are capable, intelligent people with something to offer society. It narrates the process of a mature woman peeling away at the conditioning that holds many women in submission throughout their lives.
Female fertility and the power of creation, celebrated through images of jackfruits in all stages of maturity, rabbits and the moon with cycles of waxing and waning are important aspects of Sosa’s work. Women in states of undress and the repeated image of shoes question issues of sexuality and the accepted behavior patterns for females within this society where modesty is drilled into the psyche long before puberty and exposure of oneself is taboo.
It will be fascinating to observe how social attitudes and relationships between the sexes will evolve as the undeniable process of globalization plays its role on society. How many Indian women will identify with their emancipated western counterparts and how many will choose the familiar path of traditional roles and their associated confinement? Certainly with the same tenacity that the moon reveals herself in the glare of the daytime sun, feminine mystical powers will always overcome.”
More Intimate Revelations:
Pg. 1: Yolanda Andrade Pg. 2: Belkis Ayon
Pg. 3: Christel Dillbohner Pg. 4: Mari Omori/Maritta Tapanainen
Pg. 5: Kyung Sun Cho/Theodora Varney Jones/Echiko Ohira Pg. 7: Younhee Paik
