Artist Puja Kshatriya is presenting her work Facebook of Reclaimed Identities, her new series of small formatted paintings soon at the India Habitat Centre. Her works are done on canvas with oil and acrylic. She has also used the scratching technique where one adds scratches with blade to add effects to the strokes. Compared to Puja's earlier works her recent paintings are small in size. Most of these works not more than three feet in size resemble the that of the frame of a computer screen.
The images are those of flowers and faces of children. The irony that Puja wants to build up in this series becomes palpable when one comes to know that these faces belong to those children who do not have any access to Facebook or related activities. They may be featured in Facebook through somebody’s agency and in fact without their knowledge.
The image infested realm of Facebook often uses and abuses the identity of people who are randomly photographed without consent, credit or remuneration. Seen against this context of Facebook abuse, Puja’s works speak of the realms and identities that are incapacitated by the overuse of the medium. Hence, Puja’s works open up a critical body of paintings that suggestively questions the so called Facebook freedom. Inversely, the artist acknowledges the medium’s power to give a face to those people who otherwise will never have a face in the world of internet.
Facebook for Puja Kshatriya is an operative metaphor in her works. She portrays faces and events through emblematic registrations. Pursuing her passion for the arts over the last forty years, Puja has earned great admiration and accolades for her work, with exhibitions in Dubai, Jakarta, London and Singapore amongst others.
Departing from the traditional style of painting, along with acrylics, Puja uses the blade scraping technique, where in two-three layers of oil colours are applied and then the blade is used to bring out the forms. The pressure while scraping is varied. This technique gives a sculptural effect to the figures.
The images are those of flowers and faces of children. The irony that Puja wants to build up in this series becomes palpable when one comes to know that these faces belong to those children who do not have any access to Facebook or related activities. They may be featured in Facebook through somebody’s agency and in fact without their knowledge.
The image infested realm of Facebook often uses and abuses the identity of people who are randomly photographed without consent, credit or remuneration. Seen against this context of Facebook abuse, Puja’s works speak of the realms and identities that are incapacitated by the overuse of the medium. Hence, Puja’s works open up a critical body of paintings that suggestively questions the so called Facebook freedom. Inversely, the artist acknowledges the medium’s power to give a face to those people who otherwise will never have a face in the world of internet.
Facebook for Puja Kshatriya is an operative metaphor in her works. She portrays faces and events through emblematic registrations. Pursuing her passion for the arts over the last forty years, Puja has earned great admiration and accolades for her work, with exhibitions in Dubai, Jakarta, London and Singapore amongst others.
Departing from the traditional style of painting, along with acrylics, Puja uses the blade scraping technique, where in two-three layers of oil colours are applied and then the blade is used to bring out the forms. The pressure while scraping is varied. This technique gives a sculptural effect to the figures.