Artist Statement

In my practice, I draw inspiration from the perspective of my grandma to develop the emotional atmosphere of my paintings. My memory of her was as a soft-bodied figure sitting on the couch who was mostly non-verbal. According to my mom she was an artist and activist when she was younger, and then it was like somebody put a pause on the video of her life. She held everything inside of her, quietly, and I thought, what could she possibly want for me to see or know? The conflict, intimacy, and warmth held in sacred spaces between two sisters, cousins, mother and daughter, are painted with the imaginary directions given to me by my grandma’s soft voice. 

 The women are being adorned, comforted, or decorated with carefully crafted cloth passed down between generations and continents. They are dressed in jamdani sarees with motifs directly woven into the fabric, a labor intensive process that symbolizes identity and dignity. The saris are a living archive that represents Bangladesh’s ecology, history, and collective memory. I experiment with image transfer techniques in my childhood home as a way to delve into themes of memory, education, and beauty in the female Bangladeshi-American community. .