Pranati Das

I completed my B.F.A course in painting from B.K college of Art & Craft (Bhubaneswar, Odisha) in 2010. While I started to paint realistically, I gradually experimented with stitching, employing materials like fabric, thread, cotton wool etc, in my works.

 
 

The traditional motifs and designs from Odisha handicrafts influenced my visual vocabulary, drawing connections with these while transforming them into relief forms. In particular the Odisha appliqué work and coir craft has had a lasting impression on me. Cutting, stitching and stuffing my forms with cotton, akin to handmade toys and attaching them onto painted canvas, I enjoy the experience of creating different levels.

Most often my works are stuffed handmade toys pasted on canvas which are based on issues related to own life. Such toys are also a very lively part of my childhood memories, which are grown into more complex present into a contemporary art form.

My works are based on my desires, emotions and the effect of surrounding on my emotional and social understanding. I want to create the feeling of three-dimensionality and the sculptural quality of tactile experience for the otherwise two-dimensional canvas. In that sense I am in-between a painter and a sculptor.

Migrating from Odisha to Delhi, for my postgraduate studies, has brought about perceptible changes in my approach and subject-matters. The transmutation of my paintings into relief works with volume and mass, asserting the patterned 3D form onto the painted surface, has given a new meaning to my works.