Description
Who we are? What constructs our identities? What makes our identities distinct from the other and thereafter defines our position among other? The questions that are much needed to be asked and to be understood today.
The idea of ‘Identity’ is a ‘construction’ of a ‘few broad components’ that are figments of our shared idea of the world. We give shape to the components while the components also keep shaping our ‘identity’. My art is therefore an investigation into understanding the constructs and it’s underlying truth. I have derived images from the narratives of our lives and recreated them with the generic shapes of the tangrams – a metaphor for the components. The layered textures and patterns on the frames comes from my fascination of the textures of old walls and ancient architectures. The worn out ornamentations, the texture created with the remains of the layers on the ancient architectures are reminiscences of an untold narrative. The components of our identities are aroused out of such layered narratives that are embedded into our shared memory which is constantly evolving and shaping us. The entire work is a huge Tangram itself while the human figures I have used here are also made from the same Tangrams – multi-coloured geometrical shapes which can be arranged in different order to give shape to the desire of creation. But why Tangrams? Significantly enough, analogous to the tangrams, we all humans are “constructions” of a “few broad components” that take a unique form to create numerous identities. Each shape here become representative of the different ‘components’, like, genders, races, castes, religions, or ideas etc. The various arrangements of the shapes give birth to a new identity.
