Painting the Ordinary

Soma Das

As an artist, my works depict a distinguished category of life experience linked to the lower-income suburbs of Kolkata. Growing up in such a neighbourhood, in a joint family, under financial constraints was trying. Still, as I recall, it was also fascinating, imbued with a distinct charm and communitarian spirit. Since I was a girl child and families like ours mostly ran under restrictive paternal control, women formed their own community within it. Despite being intertwined with the rest of the family and neighbourhood, the women still somehow managed to maintain a separate world, a world that covertly cultivated imagination and creativity. 

Listening to my grandma’s stories, watching her stitching Kanthas, and seeing my mother collect embroidery and clothing designs from old magazines and newspaper packages played an essential role in my later artistic journey. As I see it, the seed of creativity was already implanted back in those days, that later became a conscious choice in my youth.

In my college days, during the train journey from home to art college and back, I used to listen to stories and conversations of the passengers in the ladies’ compartment. It is interesting that even on public transport, I was again surrounded by women, and it is something that reflects heavily in my artworks. Many of my works also contain reclaimed dress material in the background, and sometimes I recreate their patterns and motifs in my paintings as a sign of tactile remembrance. My practice entails the act of reminiscing as a tool and miniature as a style with its unique birds-eye perspective that has an innate storytelling capacity that I discovered later and adopted. But instead of illustrating an external narrative, my paintings are responsible for their own narration, depicting the fragments of ordinary life I collect and recollect.