SAN JOSE MUSEUM OF ART
 
Modern and Contemporary Art from India
February 25, 2011 through September 4, 2011, San Jose Museum of Art
 
 
  SCISSORS, 2005
Mixed media on paper
56 x 39 inches
Collection of Kaushie Adiseshan and Anand Rajaraman
Photo: Courtesy the artist
 
 
Chitra Ganesh
 
Born 1975, Brooklyn, New York
Lives and works in New York
 
In Scissors, the faces of a woman and a man are merged to create the third eye—a reference to the Hindu deity Ardhanarishvara, a combination of the gods Shiva and Parvati who represents the coming together of male and female energies.  Breaking the barrier of the thought bubble in which they are contained, the woman reaches to remove her partner’s unshared eye. Perhaps the eye will be added to the collection of excised eyes below only to grow back and be removed again. Through this powerful gesture, Chitra Ganesh reconfigured the balance of power in the male/female relationship.