Color The Future

Supper Time by Horace Pippin, The Barnes Foundation

Barnes Foundation (Philadelphia), Collection Gallery, Room 12, East Wall\n

Pippin, who received no formal art training, developed a technique of “carving” into his panels with a hot poker. Here, burnt-wood lines (incised over pencil) construct the chair, windowpanes, door panels, and contours of the figures.

Martha Lucy, The Barnes Foundation: Masterworks

Ink portraits $20 ✍🏾🌈 cash app: $hollyhocks paypal: www.paypal.me/beautifuldad

I’m also open to donations of any amount to help pay for food, medicine and rent. Tysm🙏🏾❤️

GDBee on Instagram / Society6 / Redbubble

Here’s a list of other programs. Keep posting till it’s widely known.

COLORS: Shruthi is a 20 year old painter from Los Angeles

when did you begin painting?

I started painting when I was 6 or 7, I would go to India to visit my grandparents and I started taking lessons there with the local “art master.” I first started learning with ceramics, then glass paint, acrylic, oil, etc. 

why do many of the women in your paintings appear to be crying?

This a pretty funny question, I get it a lot. There’s two reasons actually. One of them is kind of silly, like those who know me well know that I rarely cry even when I’m sad. People often say I’m an emotionless soul with a black heart and with black lungs to match, but it’s just that I’ve learned to keep it inside and express emotion through art. Happy emotions are easy to express for me but ones of sadness I like to keep in my paintings. Another reason is that some of the women I paint have a story behind them of oppression and struggle. That’s best captivated by tears. 

what inspired your “the struggle imagery” ?

This painting is actually so personal to me and I feel that this is the one that kind of put me on the radar as an “artist” I guess. It goes back to what it feels to live in the West and watch our cultural traditions get stolen from us, but when we try to practice and retain our culture we are seen as sort of “backwards” and “resisting assimilation.” It goes back to watching Indian doctors who stop wearing salwar kameez under their white coats or women engineers who don’t wear a bindi to work because it’s unprofessional. In order to “fit in” and be successful in a Western society we struggle with protecting the culture we are taught and living in the culture in front of us.

how do you reconcile being beholden to the Bengal School as a means of preserving a movement vs. exploring different styles?

I think the Bengal School is definitely both preserving a very important movement in South Asian art while also being very experimental and deviating from the norm and specific styles in South Asian art. It’s actually one of my favorite movements and it’s so special because it flourished during British oppression and it just represents a revolution in so many dimensions. 

do you find that your work is influenced by The Bombay Progressive Artists’ Group?

My work is influenced by all styles of South Asian art actually but I can see how one can characterize my paintings to have a lot of influence from the Bombay Progressive Artists’ Group. I admire a lot of the work but I really truly aspire to be that good one day. I draw inspiration from a lot of South Indian art as well as from the Mughal period too, but my take on it is a lot more impressionist.

can you speak on how  art can be a viable avenue for Indian women who feel the stifling oppression of patriarchy?

Any art form in general is an avenue for freedom from any form of oppression, whether that be from the patriarchy or other internal issues. Good art is extremely emotional and to be able to channel that in any way whether it’s with paints, pencils, words, music, or dance, it is an amazing avenue for expression and self-discovery. Art is crippling sometimes but also so empowering. 

why do you believe decolonizing the mind is a headache?

Decolonizing the mind is a headache because…well first of all I made that as a joke because I was personally struggling to paint that piece and it was giving me a literal headache, but the process of explaining decolonizing to colonizers is definitely a headache. I think that’s what I was getting at. 

what do you hope your audience takes away from your work?

I hope my audience finds my work relatable but also inspiring in the sense that they too can believe that they can do art and use it as an outlet as well. My work is not really intricate, it’s actually very simple and very minimalist and I hope that inspires other women in the diaspora to express themselves through art. 

what are your ultimate goals as an artist?

My ultimate goal as an artist is to get my work out there but also to find a style. My goal is for people to look at my work and automatically know it’s mine, but at the same time I’m working endlessly on learning more and more technique-wise and skill-wise. I want to become better. 

ANNIE HSIAO-CHING WANG

SOJOURNER TRUTH Portrait Art by Francesco Francavilla