sempozyum_bildiri_kitabi

1
The representation of the life phases in art has however been selective.
2
Either as embodied experience or those which were externally determined.
3
This idea of a space as a metaphor for an experience, grew from my childhood memory of
playing a game locally called stapu or hopscotch , which had drawings of chalk made onto the
floor or road. The girls had to carefully hop onto each box on one foot, making way till the end. It
is ironical that childhood memories are refurbished in teenage and as the identity of the self
extends to that of an artist, it percolates as a source of expression. The spaces which were earlier
a play zone, now became a conscious choice in art.
4
Though not in this work , I also used objects such as kitchen dish washing wired mesh and
terracotta foot scrubber, which were dipped in paint and used onto the surfaces of paper and
canvas for the emotive quality of the tactile effect they lent. Like wise I have also used surfaces of
found materials such as brown sand paper and black emery cloth and jute as an alternative for
paper or canvas. Symbolically red wax seal sticks used for sealing packets and suggestive of
enclosure were also used in some works. Through materials, forms and process a cumulative
emotional expression was sought.
5
McAdams explains that autobiographical memories are encoded and later retrieved in ways that
serve the person’s goals. For me this has been true with regard to the retrieval of my gendered
experiences as potent subject matter in my art. (see pp 244)
6
McAdams states that telling the story of the event again and again may help the teller to clarify
the event’s emotional meaning.
7
I would here like to highlight an incident during an artist camp, when my work in‐progress
(which was that of forms with arial view of landscapes) was interpreted as foetal imagery by
fellow artists working besides me. Soon after the camp was over , three days later I learnt that I
was pregnant. This brought me to understand that in my work the realms of psychology and the
art process were not alien to each other and that intuition played an important role in my
expressions. Following this I continued with the mapping of my biological pulses into my art and it
culminated in a body of work which I called Transit Spaces.
8
The most immediate impact of this was on the colour palette which had a dominance of pink
and forms such as toys ,candies and dresses which fancied a baby girl. This was reflected in works
such as Candy Dreams which is not discussed here. Gradually the maternal turn also began to
incorporate a larger picture and I did drawings on female infanticide.
9
This work grew out of another work I had done during International Painters’ Residency at
Theertha International Artists’ Collective in Sri Lanka in 2007, where exploring the maternal, I
went beyond my own cultural reflection and well into the Sinhala culture.
10
This concern also led to other works such as Garbage Tornado –I & II which are not discussed in
the paper, in which the approach to looking at consumption was to do with post‐consumption
environmental contamination
11
Apart from understanding my own experience of physical pain, part of this project involves
building a sense of empathy with the like experiences of others through creative ways. This includes
recently reviewing a publication of a book‐project titled Frissure : A collaborative work between
Kathleen Jamie and Brigid Collins ; which published collaboration between a cancer survivor poet and
an artist. Though I started with reviewing the book, I ended with starting a new work inspired by the
book.
Bibliography
McAdams, Dan.P. “Personal Narratives and the Life Story” In Handbook of Personality: Theory and
Research (Third Edition), edited by Oliver P. John, Richard W. Robins and Lawrence A. Pervin, 242‐
264.New York : Guilford Press, 2008.
Giddens, Anthony. Sociology, Fourth Edition, UK: Polity, 2001.