Chila Kumari Burman at Admit One - Brief Article - Statistical Data Included

London-based Chila Kumari Burman has enjoyed a healthy art career in Europe since the '80s, though her recent show at Admit One was her New York debut. Her work tends to deal with issues of race, mythology, history and gender. This show was no exception. It comprised collages that address and explore the artist's conflicted identity as a first-generation British daughter of Indian immigrants. The show's title, "Flirt--Storm in a D Cup," might also tip one off to Burman's in-your-face womanly esthetic.

Hello Girls! (1999) is the show's largest work (at 9 by 16 feet). Its title reverses that of the "Hello Boys!" Wonderbra ad campaign, whose billboard depictions of scantily clad female figures are said to have caused a number of traffic accidents. Burman's retort contains 120 C-prints of bras made of Asian fabrics, bindis and flower petals jumbled together. She made the images by arranging these items on a color photocopier, making copies of them and then photographing the photocopies. Like the majority of the artist's work, this piece is busy, kaleidoscopic and almost embarrassingly fecund: colors are mingled as in a stained-glass window or a messy sock drawer.

Burman's "Fly Girl" (1994) series shows a variety of female faces collaged together and is hallucinogenic in its visual allure. Three montages of Hindu goddesses, young hipster chicks and women in traditional Indian dress point to clashing notions of femininity. They also insinuate the cultural pastiche that individuality invariably is. And while these are interesting notions, it might also be said that identity art of this sort has seen fresher days.

Burman's perspective is, to me, at its best when she bases her work in emotion more than concept. My favorite piece in the show was Dad on Ship Coming to Britain and the Three Queens (1995). This piece mingles Burman's perception of Queen Elizabeth as an emblem of Britishness with two other "queens": the artist's mother and grandmother. The composition also contains two images of her father: one of him on a boat arriving in Europe for the first time, and another of him with the ice-cream truck he made his living with. Here, the intricate dynamics that constitute survival and define nationality are engaging and sensually palpable: the artist's personal memory renders her work's political content inviting.

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