AND STARE CONTINUES

I always believed that art is a process and I need to walk through this process to identify my inner strength. These are the years that I heard my inner calling truly to express what I am looking for as an artist. For the last many years, I felt a significant change in my surrounding. The society was transforming slowly. I witnessed few unusual veils around me. Women were covered and men were silent. Though not very firmly, one cannot avoid the sight too. I think I was suffocated as it was not very typical veil that I perceived in my society, rather it seemed as if imported!

Deep inside I was yelling-at-these changes, wanting to understand the slow transformation that was evident to make a mark in near future. Our moderate society was not that liberal anymore. It was shifting. And as an expression, I started my very own work ‘Staring Women’ as a series. These works were the evidences of my surroundings-at-that period of time.

My long white canvases filled with dark black eyes and ‘fully covered’ became my very own expression. The eyes say a lot but the veil shut them up. Eyes are vivid but the veils are static. Therefore, people start understanding my art and they connect through my art with their reality.

Art is the aesthetic reflection of the real. As I was deeply engaged in my art process, I could not but allow myself to feel the reality and express thereby. But only canvas, paint and brush were not enough for my artistic expression. I needed more! There, I started performing. I started video installation as my art expression.

My performance ‘And Stare Continues’ starts with veiled face but unveiled eyes sharing the inner sufferings and voices which have been oppressed by societal norms. I used balloons as metaphor to represent how too much air stuffed into it can make a ‘big bang’ in the end.