My visit to Varunika Sampat’s show inspired me to create ‘Underneath the canopy, loom the fairies’ that looks beautiful on the surface, but has darker undertones upon closer inspection in response to the prompt ‘read between the lines’. Sized 420x594 mm, the artwork incorporates mixed media (muslin cloth, gold leaf, jute rope, decoupage) to create layers of paint with tones of ochre and gold, in order to summon a fairyland. This composition has traditional Disney princesses portrayed with the darker aspects of their story. The Indian custom of ‘Vat Purnima’ of tying sacred string around banyan trees for a husband's health, is marred into shackles to represent the patriarchy.
As faces and castles, textiles and jewels entangle with branches that stem around from everywhere, the neutral figurations with a hint of eyes dare to peep and encounter the viewer’s imagination. A tangibility in the other-wordly slowly gets processed as I listen truly to my feelings and the world I yearn to design: a world that is never truly what it seems.