writing_womans_lives_symposium_paper_book_v2

to my exploration of ‘the gendered physicality of being’ and I began to consistently draw and re‐draw
the breast ‘seeking a beauty built on a sense of loss’.
In 2013, post‐ recovery, I resumed
regular art practice and started working on a
series of works on paper titled Cancer Diary,
which is an ongoing project. I began to
create what I call ‘medical landscapes’
where the nostalgia of being in a medical
space is mapped. The body ones again
ceased to appear. Instead the breast as a
central form surfaced as uprooted from the
body and potted onto a hospital bed and
the bed in the operation theatre. In the
work Untitled (2013, see image 5) the
anticipation of surgical intervention and
medical gaze is expressed through a
repetition of the forms to collectively echo
this dilemma of loss of feminity and the
anxiety of physical pain. Created in sumi‐e
(Chinese ink) and gouache, through layers
of paint, a mood of anxiety is created in an
almost monochrome or muted colour palette.
Image 5. Untitled
Sumi-e ink , Chinese Water Colour and Gouache on Paper, 2013
(Cancer Diary Series).
As an ongoing project I hope to extend Cancer Diary towards mapping and archiving experiences
of pain and anxieties of others who have also undergone treatment for breast cancer. As art is a
visual means of the construction of knowledge of life, this extension as a collaborative project shall
also possibly open new windows to the diverse ways in which the challenges to feminity were taken
up by others. This once again brings me to the point of wanting to have a larger view of the world
from the gendered window in my art. The experiences of pain as a universal phenomenon shall be
mapped through an art project 11 . Hopefully it shall enable catharsis and also a sense of gendered
interdependence through art.
I had woven the abstract with three keywords ‘Self’, ‘Gendered Life’ and ‘Art Making’ and through
their interrelation , have attempted to discuss the imperative relation between my art and my life
within the gendered roles. My experiences as a woman have made me build a reservoir of memory
and the sourcing of the matter (contextual or otherwise) by sifting within it, has lent to my art
practice unique personal narratives. In the absence of my location in the gendered roles I chose to
play or narrate, these would otherwise not have been possible concerns in my art. My art making has
been the ‘unarchiving’ of memories and of the memories–to–be‐ constructed. For me the purpose of
making of such an art is creative to begin with; but sees better light when one understands that
autobiographical reasoning is an exercise in self‐integration (McAdams, 2008).
Keywords: Self, Gendered life, Art making
Dr. Ruchika Wason Singh
Visual Artist/ Associate Professor (Contractual)
Dept. of Painting,
BFA College of Art
New Delhi, India.
ruchikawsingh@gmail.com
ruchigagan@rediffmail.com
ruchikasinghindia@gmail.com
Notes
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