about my work-

My works are a personal interpretation of a

collective experience woven in and around the traditional consort of

miniature paintings. Having lived and studied in baroda and witnessing the perpetual communal tension in the state I was drawn to explore Mughal history as an attempt towards not ghettoing art as hindu or muslim. Visually what drew me to mughal and later Persian miniatures was the incorporation of the patterns within the composition, the compartmentalized spatial structure, the fine line renderings and the way at times the composition moves out of the rigid structure of the frame in the latter . I began with incorporating mughal patterns in my works which later got infused with everyday and mundane objects such as immersion rods ,scissors , gynaecological instruments, slippers, irons etc mostly woven into a vine-like pattern in the centre of my composition making them the protagonist of the painting with the narrative constructed around the central image as a frame or the margin. The frame, being an integral part of Mughal and Persian miniatures, became a place for me where I could approach the subject of the painting in visually narrative ways. With an intention of bringing what traditionally would have been relegated to the margins, to the center. This has been my way of exploring the way in which visual dialogues can be initiated between the abstracted central image and the linear narrative that is woven around it on the frame, like in the work “The ninth of may”.

The title of the paintings “the ‘9th of May’ I and II has been appropriated from Goya’s ‘the third of may’. For me the political connotation associated in the latter’s case does not entirely change here, by some what retaining the title of goya’s work , I have tried to express the gravity of the distress and disgust felt over the unjust turn of events on the date I have emphasized on , to title my work .

Pattern making remains an integral part of my work; patterns for me are not simply an ornamental design. The more I have explored pattern the more I have learnt that they may be used to - abstract an experience ,even of disturbing events and deal with temporality and memory through repetition. I use repetition as I like the idea of camouflaging my images so that they don’t become too didactic and at the same time demand certain intimacy from the viewer in order to be able to decipher it . Repetition of form enables me to emphasize on the image, importantly for me the process of repeatedly making these images is like a cathartic act.

Creating multiple layers in my paintings allows me to juxtapose various experiences from different time frames in a single matrix and I often use “jaalis” or paper cut stencils to add another layer to my work , the source of these jaalis were the “jharokhas” , customary in the Mughal architecture, as in the earlier times women in most of the Indian cultures were confined to the walls of their houses, their only access to the outside world being these ‘jharokhas’ / windows, but the design of the jaalis prevented them from the sight of the external world . The fact that these women lived in enclosed and claustrophobic spaces, restricted and yet at the same time being able to observe and view without getting noticed intrigues me. Keeping the historic purpose of the jaalis in mind and in an attempt to subvert it a bit I use them to ‘control’ the gaze of the viewer , playing a sort of game of hide and seek where I can decide what areas of the images beneath I want to be revealed through the jaali.

For instance in my work titled the ‘Scissor Blues’, I intend to address the pertinent issue of female foeticide, in this work I have repeated a pattern of ovaries layered with a lattice of scissors , scissors being a surgical instrument ,used here to not give, but to take life. By juxtaposing the car Nano , with these images, which for me is an indicator of pseudo development of the region , I want to comment on the manipulative election frenzy that subsumes all motives of humanitarian ethics.