LIFELINES - SOUMYA SITARAMAN

Installation art and mixed media presentation by a contemporary artist Soumya Sitaraman, was exhibited at the Centenary hall, Museum Theatre, as a part of The Other Festival. Soumya makes powerful images with simple, natural, everyday objects to create a positive portrayal of life. In this series - Lifelines, each piece celebrates the human spirit beyond the barriers of nationality, caste, economic status and sexual preference.

Sowmya illustrates individual triumphs and highlights the individual identity, which is otherwise muddled by collective identities like sex, nationality etc. She uses fingerprints to highlight this point effectively. Fingerprints used as identification marks metaphorically denote the collective and the obvious visual identity, and she advocates 'reading between the lines' to understand the real identity of an individual. She uses powerful colours and embroidery to get her message across. These works have resulted from personal interviews with different people.

Keeping aBreast - untitled is an interesting piece, where Soumya has created powerful imagery with padded blouses to denote women who have undergone mastectomy. This piece is a tribute to breast cancer victims. She has also tackled other universal and basic problems like depletion of rice cultivation because of advancement of technology and the purpose of the arts.

The success of her art lies in the storytelling about each piece, narrating how, otherwise ordinary people were able to battle the odds and evolve into strong human beings. This helps any individual interpret her art with individual perspective and choice. A source of inspiration for the uninspired.

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