Who’s Your Dadi? is a series of acrylic paintings that explore the imagined figure of the South Asian grandmother through the lens of clothing and textile while suggesting the maternal at the apex of patriarchal histories. Dadi is a Hindi/Urdu/Punjabi word for paternal grandmother.
Series
Who’s Your Dadi?
Created
2022
Medium
Acrylic on canvas
Dimensions
Varied
2022
Shanta Ba
Acrylic on canvas
30 in. x 48 in.
2022
Kaushalya
Acrylic on canvas
30 in. x 48 in.
2022
Shakuntalabai
Acrylic on canvas
36 in. x 36 in.
2022
Ram Lubhai
Acrylic on canvas
36 in. x 36 in.
2022
Sushma
Acrylic on canvas
30 in. x 48 in.
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While inspired by grandmothers, the figures in Who’s Your Dadi? do not function as portraits. Instead, in delighting in the aging body of grandmothers, Sethi brings forth a vision of grandmothers as keepers, makers, and users of textile. Specificities of South Asian cloth history is brought to the fore with each work suggesting different techniques of cloth and pattern-making such as ikat, kalamkari, block-print, mashru, check, appliqué, mirror work, and others. By invoking cloth histories alongside the types and ways of clothing worn by grandmothers, Sethi deliberately connects cloth to ancestral and cultural memory.
The figures have been placed in environments that imagine a narrative beyond the worn body. This extends our understanding and appreciation of cloth as it is lived and used, while also invoking longing and nostalgia for some in the South Asian diaspora who have made migration journeys.
Read “The Dadi Principle” written by Laila Malik who offers her thoughts and reflections on the Who’s Your Dadi? series of paintings.
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