As an artist, I sought to express, in many broken pieces (the shards), that were, permanence in my life for 21 years, being constantly wounded by others and myself, breaking and creating my own imagined walls against and for the idea of true love. That’s how I began to put together my show, “The Erratic Beats of my Heart”.
My journey of exploring love from the other was excruciatingly painful, while I stood against the permanence of patriarchy and power abuse. I put those unpleasant and overwhelming experiences in boxes. Many tight compact stand-alone boxes.
My artworks are abstract and so were my feelings about the unsaid and said unfair and unequal rules set by the system. These unacceptable and useless power systems weaken society at large, thus taking away the humane-ness of a person from the basic sense of self. I could not adjust to the wrongs of the patriarchy as often as they occurred.
I trusted my heart would always to do the necessary checks and balances to stay in tune with my universal values of freedom, justice, and compassion. When my heart skipped a beat, I respected that, as my life depends on it; I note it, stay with it, I find out in detail, the “why, what and how’ of its erraticness. It was my diagnosis, of sorts, to un-filter, come back to, and stay on my path to be alive and happy.
To be a martyr for the patriarchs is not a game I will play. I neither understand it, nor do I see any value in it for me.
I documented my human self through my paintings, photos, and videos, as that was all available to me as a way to record my truth. It was the most important mode for me, while I seeped into the system as an outsider.
Fighting the patriarchy damaged me emotionally and killed my spirit, cutting through the deepest layers of my precious self. The self never really wanted to give up tot the power and mercy of an unfair system, however much I may have tried. The answer was ‘defy or die’. The system is so complex that it leaves no space for expressing real existence as a human, let alone as a woman.
The exhibition of my art works is in a smallish and not swanky space. But it is cozy and a part of the experience.
“The Erratic Beats of my Heart” is on until March 27, 2019. Interested in checking out Deepa’s show? For details, drop her a mail at deepa.1480@gmail.com.