“I have always been a lover of freedom, traveling, and meeting people from different places but the situation has changed and thus my way of living and working too. The process of my works is meditative and it gives me a way to keep myself evolved and to express and explore. The woman has always been the focal point in my works. For me, this time of Pandemic has negativity and positivity both in its lap. Our earth is rejuvenating herself; environment is becoming pollution free which is a great thing for the world. So, I am looking at both sides of this situation and working on it. Instead of collecting materials from outside, I am working with limited materials available at home, exploring with my old clothes, hankies, etc. which gives my works a layered narration.

My images became a part of my lifestyle during these days and those things give me inner pleasure, like nature and things around me. I have used images of flowers, trees, and huge blank space as the sky in my works, which help me to be positive in this situation. Somewhere I also tried to express my confusion and fear of the future. And also tried to highlight upon the miseries of women, during lockdown has gone through domestic violence felt being trapped in their own shelter.

The images of hands in particular ways of worship which I follow and it’s a kind of balancing. Nature and text have always been an inspiration for me and so often I use to amalgamate this in my works. Different poses of worshiping hands are drawn to give tribute to all the people who are suffering in this situation by health issues, losing their jobs, and labors from all over the world. I have used hankies as a basic material, which we use to make us comfort when we feel heat or cold, it is used as a representational factor for giving comfort to my viewers too. My intension is to provide positivity and peace to all of us in this crisis. The running lines of threads are the metaphor of repairing things, to find a connection between people around us.”

ADITI RAMAN