In ‘After The Fall’ Dhruvi Acharya Confronts Female Oppression

From the depths of the canvas these women cry out with expressive eyes and unspoken thoughts - artist Dhruvi Acharya has managed to capture a whirlwind of emotions with her paintbrush and for her, the journey to this point of creative ability has been long and arduous. The show, ‘After the Fall’ marks her first solo show in six years after the double blow of losing her father and her husband in 2010. The drawings and paintings in this series encapsulate her feelings and play on the impermanence of life being similar to the passing of seasons, fall to winter to spring to summer—a constant change. It also refers to her personal struggle to regroup her life, as she puts it herself, “after a fall, one can have two reactions – stay down, or gather courage and rise again.”

Her process begins in her sketchbooks, where she tries to give shape to her emotions and thoughts. She brings in her observations, experiences and anything that happens to be playing on her mind. She believes that the world we live in doesn’t treat women the way it ought to, and so, she decided to address that in her work. Perhaps the most compelling piece in the collection may be ‘Awakening,’ spread across three panels each symbolises the rage, despair and exhaustion that women feel because they don’t have control over their own bodies. A woman forced to dress in white screams her disapproval while another exhales her sadness and fear into a waiting speech bubble with a mouth to swallow it; a third sits proudly displaying her white wings, uncaring of the world around her.

This collection is far larger than an average exhibition as it showcases three and a half years of work. Dhruvi finds catharsis in the drawing stage where she gets to shape her worries into beautiful outlets but feels that the act of painting is purely meditative. She’s broken away from the traditional mediums of oil and watercolour in this exhibit and has even tried her hand at three dimensional installations made of korakapda. She also enjoyed painting on linen with polymer paints because of the variety of paint handling it allows her. “I also love working on paper... I guess there is no real favourite is there?” she admits.

With all the time, love and work that she’s put into this project she has high hopes for its affects. “I hope my work compels viewers to reflect on their own experiences and sentiments, making the specifics of the stories and the meaning of each image unimportant, and allow for contemplation of our shared human existence.” The intimacy and vivid imagery of every one of her creations means that it is very easy to find your own thoughts staring back at you from the canvas. She has gained a new following in the art fraternity from this project and for many, her soulful images have touched a chord that’s turned them into lifelong fans.