My art practice is profoundly intensified through my decade long and rigorous training in the Indian classical dance form of Odissi, its rich methodology of storytelling, gestures and myriad movement history, literature, along with an in-depth understanding of the human body. Its usage of Indian classical music
and percussion additionally imparts a harvest of working knowledge of countless bygone generations.
All this provides me a thorough material and ground for deconstruction of components in immersive movement, while expanding the traditional sound design enmeshed with camp sound, engaging body politics layered with social anthropology. Into this I bring content from medieval Sanskrit literature
(like the 2nd century AD Sanskrit dramaturgical tome - Natyashastra) and re-invented myths, incorporating to contemporary human situations. Pathos, confusion and wonder become the key emotive tones in my work, often leading to a hypnotic world charged with an undertone of sensuality and primitivism.
Working through interdisciplinary means, I create hybrid systems of fragmented storytelling in multimedia setups – by working through short films and sound, painting, mud sculptures, and immersive performance in installation based environments. My projects expand to their completion with regular collaborative ventures and engagement with other artists from diverse fields, and backgrounds. My interests range
from queer subjectivity and identity representation layered through a South Asian perspective; to food
and ecofeminism informed through a decolonial thought. For this I maintain an ever evolving set of sketchbooks and visual notes, containing invented characters, diagrams, music notations, and a range
of written eclectic texts.
My painting practice embodies this process as a whole, and results in oil on canvas in various sizes. Since mid 2019, I have been re-interpreting the historic raagmala paintings of Central India (16th - 18th century CE) through a queer/ecological lens, which integrate the emic approach to the study of South Asian music and visual arts.
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