Ben Uri Research Unit

Born: 1951

Died:

Biography

Sculptor, illustrator, and painter, Naomi Iny was born in India in 1951. In 1971, she was a part-time student in the department of painting at the Sir J. J. School of Art in Bombay (now Mumbai), India. However, the following year, Iny began a course in painting at the Norwich School of Art, Norfolk, England, earning her diploma in 1974. From 1975 to 1976, she attended a postgraduate course in the department of Sculpture at the Slade School of Art, University College London. She primarily created wooden sculptures and drawings. For a period of time during the 1970s, she stayed in Rajasthan, northern India and made drawings. From the late 1970s Iny began to show in solo and group exhibitions in London, including in New Contemporaries/em> (1976) and Small is Beautiful at Angela Flowers Gallery (1977).

Iny belongs to the cohort of South Asian female artists in Britain who challenged stereotypes surrounding Asian womanhood through their artwork. Prior to the early 1980s in the UK, it was uncommon to see exhibitions solely featuring South Asian female artists. Yet, several landmark exhibitions emerged during the decade, helping to forge a deeper connection with the narratives of female British-Asian experiences. In 1963, a group of Indian artists residing in the UK had established the Indian Painters Collective. As the years progressed, the group had expanded, and by the 1980s, they had been granted exhibition space by the Indian High Commission, known as the Indian Artists UK Gallery. Here Bhajan Hunjan, a British artist of Indian heritage born in Kenya, was pivotal in launching Four Indian Women Artists (1981–2), the UK’s inaugural exhibition spotlighting Asian female artists, which she organised with Chila Burman. The exhibition featured their paintings and prints, complemented by Iny’s wooden sculptures and Vinodini Ebdon’s ceramic pieces. Hunjan’s work coincided with Parita Trivedi's 1984 essay, ‘To Deny Our Fullness: Asian Women in the Making of History’, published in the Feminist Review. Trivedi critically examined the representation and roles of Asian women, tracing their historical context from colonial India to modern post-colonial Britain. She countered the narratives that presented Asian women as merely passive and submissive figures. Four Indian Women Artists was not just an artistic endeavour but a feminist declaration, challenging the misplaced belief that Asian women should not, or could not, be artists, (Correia, 2019).

Beyond Four Indian Women Artists (1981–2), Iny participated in :Numaish: An Exhibition of 5 Asian Women’s Work (1986), and Jagrati: An Exhibition of Work by Asian Women Artists (1986), showing mainly wooden sculptures and drawings. In the Four Indian Woman Artists exhibition, Iny presented several pieces from the 1970s: Tree Man, Mother and Child, The Fool, and Angel, along with two untitled works. Reflecting on her artistic approach, Iny remarked: ‘My work is about people. It is not merely about the physical and apparent emotional characteristics, which it is possible to capture with a camera, but about those aspects which distinguish one animal from another in the same species [sic] that which is born in a man and dies with him: his “essential nature” or “karma” which makes us reconise [sic] him even decades later, however radically circumstances in his life may have changed his personality or outward appearance,’ (Iny, 1981, press release reproduced in Correia, 2019). Regarding the Numaish exhibition, which Hunjan also organised, art critic Naqi Ali asserted: ‘Naomi Iny’s “untitled drawings” and sculptures are inspiring and imaginative. The Fool and the other women figures carved in wood denote the artist’s creative approach and understanding of the medium. The unpretentious and evocative expression of the figures elicit and intense response from the audience,’ (Ali, 1986, p. 14).

Little is known of Iny's later career. Naomi Iny resided outside London. Her work is not currently represented in any UK public collections.