Mapping The Erotic
Much like Virginia Woolf’s appeal in her essay, this project is a visual gallery of contemplation – poetry that springs up in a place controlled solely by one’s own self. Everything is a bit surreal in the mind’s eye and often evades translation and description; night turns to day, the void becomes a portal and places change completely and yet remain recognizable. The following panels accompanied by poetry, are windows into this inexplicable and quiet quality of imagination.
QUARANTINE
“I have been trying out all sorts of surfaces and edges, bending this way and that, trying to get my body to stop hurting. But no matter what I do, I’m always uneasy, always out of sync. I just can’t seem to get comfortable with being alone.”
These four panels were attempts at studying light, colour, and a variety of brushes, ranging from dry gouache to oil, which soon solidified into the style I’m currently most comfortable working with. At another level, these panels were also an attempt to colour the same-old place I inhabited – the same stale memories, a bit differently, in an effort to cope with the physical as well as emotional distance the pandemic subjected us to.
MAKING A HOME WITHOUT TELLING ANYONE
“I am the opposite of a Magpie. There are pieces of me strewn in the homes of the people I love. My nest is scattered, in drawers and on bathroom shelves and pockets and purses. And so at the back of my head, I’m reassured, that there are places I can run to, if a storm finally arrives.”
These were the first few I made, spaced out over a period of six months, and so there’s a visible change that can be seen as I progressed from a comic-like style to one that lies in the uncanny valley, closer to details and textures.
