While reading the catalogue for Anju Dodiya’s exhibition ‘Breathing on Mirrors’, what particularly piqued my interest was the dialogue around pain and pleasure and its theatricality in the context of femininity.

My drawings also often tend to find a grounding within the historical context of storytelling or theatre (play)- where time is represented as a simultaneous occurrence instead of a linearity.

Therefore, I’ve used the concept of ‘play’ as a noun and a verb in my two drawings which are in dialogue— one as a witness and the other as an actor.

‘Reverence’ is descriptive of an immersion. The figure is play-ing the role of a quiet observer, surrendered to the wildness of the mangroves that engulf her with their growing limbs. I wanted there to be an encounter of the wildnesses that both embody and explore the tension that this meeting could hold.

‘Rupture’ is a more direct response to ‘Studio (with Phoenix)’ because of the interplay of the figures. Here, I want to invoke a sense of a silent crisis. The domestic is falling into ruins, with a chair on fire and the floor flooding with rainwater. Meanwhile, the figures embody an altered state of being, as if they're trying to perform an impossibility. I find myself intrigued by the pain and the pleasure of domestic comfort and how routines and rituals can be so fragile when confronted by the animalistic nature we hold within ourselves.

The dichotomy of the ‘feminine’ and the ‘home’ have been a longstanding preoccupation in my works. With these two drawings, they come together not entirely in harmony but in chaos and conflict and possibly, a surrender to the wild.