River Garlands

Shireen Mody, 'River Garlands' (2005)

-Brian Mendonça

Shireen Mody was a painter who put up shop in Arpora, a village in North Goa. She also ran Studio Arpora to display her work and the work of her daughter Saffron. As a writer put it, ‘Shireen Mody burned herself out in London as commercial artist, traipsed to Goa for a breather, decided this was where she'd live and die.’*  Her life came to an abrupt end on her way to a  Sunday brunch  on 6th October this year. She was 65. 

Shireen Mody, 'Bazaar' (2011)

Shireen Mody’s paintings  on Goan themes have a timeless, ethereal, quality about them.  One can view her oeuvre  across the last two decades at shireenmody.com.  Done in acrylic-on-canvas her still subjects like storks, buffaloes, bulls, boys, cows, and coconuts, are depicted with great felicity. She is also comfortable with scenes of the bazaar, and Goa’s beaches. But it seems she uses a different filter of soft hues of blues here, and more of pastel shades.

Shireen Mody, 'White Radishes' (2002) 

 She was a lover of leaves.  In 'Boys' (2002)the young boys are seen through a canopy of fronds. In another painting the spine of the banana leaf arches in symmetry (2018). She is at her surest in the rural landscape of Goa, capturing the sunlight and its intricate shadow-play. In her 'Waves' series (2006)the texture of water is shown in brilliant blues and tones of aquamarine.

It is the perspective which make Shireen’s work stand out. In ‘White Radishes’ (2002) we see the back of a cyclist wearing a loose bush-shirt and shorts tethering on a narrow lane, heading for the clearing in the foliage. On the carrier of the cycle are white radishes, their shoots in relief. The white shirt with horizontal brown stripes stands out and anchors the subject in the centre of the frame.

A mix of water colour stemming from the impressionistic school is what one may say about her work.  Splotches of colour add grace to the liquid outlines.  Her series of ‘Lanes’ (2011) and the beach scenes have a strangely detached quality about them. The viewer gets a sense of the place but not its specificity. It’s almost as though the spaces teeming with people are also strangely lonely and cold – unlike her languid  paintings of Goan porches and verandas, done in blue (2011).

Shireen Mody, 'She Wore Pink and Blue' 

The titles of her paintings deserve mention. They are down to earth, as if commenting on her work. In her painting titled ‘She wore pink and blue’ (2000) she depicts a silver-haired bespectacled -fisher-woman on a wooden stool wearing a blue sari and a pink blouse. Her arms are bronzed by the sun while her right arm is splayed in sunlight. She looks expectantly to the right of the frame hoping to see a buyer come her way. In vignettes like these, Shireen captures the hopes of simple folk and eternalizes them for posterity.

In her work ‘River garlands’ (2005) she shows a marigold garland journeying across a stretch of shimmering black water accentuated by glints of white. In the distance – like other visionaries who have left our shores – are other garlands being swallowed up in the night.

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Published in Gomantak Times Weekender, Panjim, Goa on Sunday, 20th October 2019. All paintings acrylic on canvas. Courtesy: shireenmody.com   *Shameem Akhtar in ‘ Beach  “N” Business,’  11 May  1998   outlookindia.com. Updated 30 May 2021.