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A portrait of Pakeeza's dead lover
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Dimensions: Adjustable
Medium: Digital Collage, Print on Archival Paper
Creation Date: 9th September 2020
Medium: Digital Collage, Print on Archival Paper
Creation Date: 9th September 2020
This artwork emerged over a period of 4 months. In April 2020, I discovered the beauty of Kamal Amrohi's movie Pakeeza (1972), in a particular frame from the famous song, 'Chalte Chalte' I found a pair of male eyes staring back at me. The first thing I did was to paint those eyes in watercolor in my sketchbook. I might have removed the frame out of its cinematic context, as painting these set of eyes was a catharsis of my anger which has been twisting and turning inside my body since long. From the tip of my fingers it flowed into the surface of the paper. Despite the risk of bad branding, I painted into the night, because you see in houses like mine working during the night is not what good girls do. In September 2020, I digitally added more elements to it, such as the cloud of steam that evaporates dangerously from my head, the architecture of my pointed 'gussewali' nose, the curtains of my lips through which anger escapes in the form of harsh words, screams, shivers as cold as the moon. Anger is a vulnerable, forbidden and bed ridden emotion that women like me do not know how to deal with. It comes out in very violent ways published popularly as a manly way. What is the safest way to deal with it, anyway? It remains unresolved ever since mother passed away in an accident in February 2019.