In this first critical volume and biography of the Indian artist Lalitha Lajmi, author Skye Arundhati Thomas delves into Lajmi's archives, papers, letters, and sketchbooks in pursuit of clues about the artist's character and path.
Arundhati-Thomas also reveals the critical role that psychoanalysis played in the evolution of Lajmi's art into the realm of the conceptual and, specifically, a distinctly situated form of autoethnography. Studying Lajmi's relationship with her psychoanalyst, Thomas describes how these sessions fueled a practice of self-portraiture that formed the bedrock of the artist's practice.
Imagine/otherwise presents critical biographies of underrepresented queer, non-binary, or female-identifying artists. Edited by Omar Kholeif, the series emphasizes the concept of "female worlding" with books that serve as field guides into previously unexplored, overlooked, or inaccessible artistic lives. The overall proposition of the series (to "imagine" a world "otherwise") stems from the desire to find a different way of writing and reading about art. Can art be examined unreservedly, unburdened of the limits imposed by the dominant hand of hegemony?
Current editorial advisors for the series include Skye Arundhati Thomas, Zoe Butt, Carla Chammas, Alison Hearst, and Sarah Perks.
Skye Arundhati Thomas is a writer based in Goa, India. Her writing has appeared in Artforum, the London Review of Books, Frieze, and ArtReview, among other places. She is an editor of The White Review.
Self-taught painter Lalitha Lajmi (1932–2023) was born in Kolkata, India, into a family with a keen interest in the arts, yet her artistic fervor was nonetheless limited by her circumstances. As a single mother, Lajmi set up her first studio in her garage, working on her multivalent practice long into the night. Her initial investigations began with realism and later moved into expressions of Tantrism and the concept of Bindu. Critical acknowledgment of Lajmi's work would not materialize until the very end of her life. The artist died soon after her first museum survey at Mumbai's National Gallery of Modern Art.
