CANVAS CALLING

Her Visual Art is a story on canvas. And yet, she gives us words to make it simpler and therefore, more profound.

Dr. Sonali Pattnaik shares a profusion of Art – Painted creations of her own – and Prose to complement it in a series that follows:

Title: ‘BEYOND’

(Acrylic on Paper)

This piece represents my need, as a woman and a sentient being, to travel and live as one with nature. It captures a moment of meditative silence and being one with nature and it acknowledges my need to push the boundaries of the body and reclaim spaces for women for pleasure and exploration, for going beyond the normative.

Title: ‘A WOMAN IS MANY’

(Ink on Paper)

This piece is a celebration of the limitlessness of our bodies, our beings and our desires as humans and especially as women. It is an expression of the endless fluidity of my being and my identity as constituted through a relationship with the city, with nature and with pleasure.

Title: ‘HANDSOME’

(Charcoal on Paper)

 This piece celebrates the woman’s body as dance and organic fluidity. It speaks of innate freedom and the need to reclaim that freedom. It is titled ‘handsome’ because beauty need not be gendered and language often tends to construct the beautiful as a gender-specific phenomenon. The being in this picture resists that construction through its posture of fluidity and freedom.

Title: ‘SELF-PORTRAIT’

(Pastels and Charcoal on Paper)

My art is an act of feminist resistance and celebration of the self and this piece is no different in that sense. It chooses to challenge realism and other bourgeois frames of reading the feminine self and celebrates self-reflection as an act of reclaiming and defining your body and your identity in your own terms. This self-portrait attempts to draw the contours of my face and identity as imaginative, colourful, creative and wild and as drawing from, and resting within, nature and lived spaces alike. Flowers, as always, symbolic of beauty that is free, courageous and multiple, not simply a token of possession.

Title: ‘DANCER’

(Charcoal and Pastels on Paper)

This piece represents the body in, and as, dance. It contests the borders of normative representation of the female body as produced via the male gaze and reclaims instead a body that is free, in motion and in celebration of agency over itself, an act of drawing and constructing that reflect that celebration of self and body in fluid conjunction.

(The Art Huntress needn’t mention (although she will) that all the artwork alluding to dance and dancers are utterly her favourites. Dr. Sonali Pattnaik interweaves movement, strength and fluidity rather potently. We are moved beyond measure. And then, we are free. As is she!)

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DISCLAIMER: The SHOUT! Network welcomes guest posts on its website. The statements, views and opinions expressed within these guest posts are those of the author alone and do not necessarily represent those of The SHOUT! Network and its associated writers. Whilst we endeavour to ensure the accuracy, applicability and completeness of the content on the website; no warranty or guarantee, express or implied, is given with respect to our guest posts. The SHOUT! Network is neither liable nor responsible to any person or entity for any errors or omissions, or for any offense caused from such content. The copyright in and arising out of guest post belongs to the author alone and any liability with regards to infringement of any rights including intellectual property rights remains with them.