| Pritika Chowdhry Her art tells a personal story by Laura Salinger |
| Local artist Pritika Chowdhry tells a story with her art. It is a story filled with pain, sometimes healing. It is a story that simultaneously explores her own life experiences while reaching across cultures. It is a story that is too often a painful part of women's lives. |
| When Chowdhry was a young bride in India, she faced her own personal nightmare. At 19, she became a victim of domestic abuse. Although the marriage lasted under a year, the scars from this experience remain. Her art is a vehicle to reflect on her pain, while healing some of her inner-wounds. It is her way of speaking out and breaking the silence that surrounds this taboo subject. "My paintings and sculptures become a way to disassociate my experience from myself," Chowdhry said. "It can be a way to purge. I develop a relationship with what happened, in order to let it go." For the art connoisseur, her paintings and sculptures are both a bold and complex reflection on domestic violence, culture, and a survivor's psyche. |
| "Bridal Offering" - Sculpture by Pritika Chowdhry |
| In her relationship allegories entitled "Red Bed series," Chowdhry paints disturbing and painful scenes in red tones. She boldly forces the viewer to explore what is too often ignored in many cultures. Like most of her art, the series also incorporates cultural themes. "Red is not a neutral color for women, since red is the color of blood, which for us is associated with reaching puberty, loss of virginity, periods, and childbirth," Chowdhry said in explaining the series. "Particularly for Indian women, red is the color of the wedding dress and the 'sindoor' powder that is put on one's forehead when one is getting married. Red is also the blood that is spilt when violence occurs, whether domestic or outside the home." Chowdhry is now working on a series of sculptures which explore "the dark-side of survivorship." They are large-scale figures of women in fired Paper Clay. She explains that the women's shaven heads are used as cultural signifiers, but also as a metaphor for abuse. "Up until [the] early 20th century, widows in India were made to shave their heads, as a way to desexualize and emotionally castrate them," she said. "I have appropriated the shaven head as a metaphor for the sexual and emotional damage done to these survivors of violence." While Chowdhry's art tells a personal story, it also speaks out loudly about domestic violence. When viewing her work, one is forced to either face this reality or make a conscious decision to walk away from it. "Survivors don't really have a visual presence in our consciousness," Chowdhry said. "When you make it visual, make it undeniably in your space, it has to be engaged with. You can walk away from it, but you still have to make that decision." Chowdhry's latest projects include curating two art shows in Madison as part of the "Trans: Visual Culture" conference at UW-Madison. Eight Madison artists of South Asian origin displayed their works at the front entrance gallery of UW Hospitals and Clinics recently as part of the "South Asian Diaspora Art" exhibition. It was an opportunity, Chowdhry said, to bring together a group of local artists who have never shown their work together. "I put together this show mainly to bring this group together," she said. "To my knowledge, there has never been a South Asian Diaspora in Madison." |
| DIASPORIC ART PRACTICES "Diasporic Art Practices" at Gallery 734 recently brought together artists with diverse diasporic identities in order to highlight works created from a diasporic space. Featured artists had origins from India, Korea, Indonesia, Thailand, Japan, Mexico, Serbia, Greece, etc. The exhibit also featured American artists who lived for a significant amount of time in other countries. |
| Chowdhry explains the diasporic experience as one marked by a lack of rootedness. It is an experience that she is familiar with. |
| Born and raised in India, Chowdhry lacked roots even in her native land. Her father was an account officer for the Indian air force. Her family was always on the move. "My childhood involved a lot of travel," she said. "I was diasporic even before moving out of India." From an early age, Chowdhry loved art, but math soon became her focus. "The two things I was good at in school were math and art," she said. "As a woman, I wanted to be financially independent, so I focused on math." Chowdhry received a B.A., M.B.A., and M.S. in Software Systems in India, before moving to New York City with her second husband. She worked for many years in the IT industry both in New York City and eventually in Madison. Her focus now has shifted to art and she is currently a graduate student in UW-Madison's art department. |
| "My being in Madison really allowed me to come back to my art," Chowdhry said. "It was time for me to explore what life can be like without a safety net while experiencing the joy of my art." While Chowdhry's art is a reflection of her own personal journey as a survivor, it reaches out to others and examines violence, surviving, womanhood, and culture with visual poignancy. To learn more about Pritika Chowdhry or to view her work, visit www.pritikachowdhry.com. |
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| (Above) "Reverie Interrupted" by Pritika Chowdhry |
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| (l-r)"Exhume" by Carrie Hoelzer; "Feeto Ke Petra" by Anna Moisiadis; "Reflection" by Chowdhry; and "Metal Rupture" by Logu Ulaganathan |
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| "Afro Cuba de Matanzas" by Jose Rodriguez |
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