How one woman artist uses vibrant colors and an array of textures to tell the story of women's emotions
She has used her unique style to give her paintings the burst of colors varying from shades of green, blue, red, and pink to bring out the most mesmerizing portraits of women, whose eyes reach deep within your soul. Her work with the brush is so refined that facial expressions and features in her paintings bring the pictures to life.
Nidhi’s brush strokes are perfect, the patterns she uses to bring her characters to life seem almost impossible, yet her impeccable style of fragmentation gives her paintings a fresh and powerful allure. It is no wonder that her works have been featured in the likes of Pacific Art League Gallery and the 111 Minna Art Gallery in San Francisco.
“Most of my paintings have vibrant colors. Each color on my canvas represents an emotion. When colors and patterns combine they create the most powerful images that allow me to depict even the darkest and most agonizing emotions in a colorful way,” says Nidhi, whose works have been mentioned in prestigious local magazines like ‘The City of Cupertino Scenes’.
Women and beauty
The idea of beauty throughout history has been distorted to suit a select few, women for centuries have been taunted for their color, the shape of their eyes, lips, and nose. Nidhi’s paintings go beyond these prejudices and stereotypes. The technique she uses completely redefines beauty The use of vibrant and bold colors creates a unique magnetism as you gaze at her paintings.
Nidhi is very precise with facial expressions and features drawing her audience in and leaving them enthralled by the power each of her paintings exalts. The women in her paintings look strong, confident, and fearless, these are some characteristics that Nidhi captures exceptionally well. As she ventures into categorizing emotions through colors to tell a fierce and powerful story about women.
“I tend to explore the issues women face in modern society due to harmful social norms and stereotypes, despite everything a woman goes through, she looks ravishing, full of hopes, dreams, and desires. Every color and shape on my canvas is like one of the zillions of emotions she feels. By breaking down her images into patterns and fragments of color, I try to break down stereotypes and release her from a state or situation that limits her freedom of thought or behavior, says the artist who was recently voted as a semi-finalist at the esteemed Bombay Sapphire Artisan Series.
Nidhi, who has also won the 2019 Emerging Artist Award for the City of Cupertino believes that the role women play in our societies is usually undermined, their importance is usually overshadowed due to the long-standing patriarchal norms.
Although Nidhi is not the first artist to portray women in this light, she is definitely one of the few women artists to have accomplished expressing something so surreal such as emotions with grace and elegance, this was why her painting made it to the cover page of the August 2019 edition of a popular art magazine called Average Art.
Women artists of color in a man's world
Art for centuries has been known to inspire and empower people across the world, be it paintings by renaissance painters or those made by modern artists, it has for centuries remained a powerful tool of expression. However, be it several hundred years ago or even today, the most celebrated artists and painters have been men.
Like it or not even today, women artists are mostly underrepresented in art galleries, museums, and auction houses, in fact, according to a data survey conducted by permanent collections of 18 prominent art museums in the U.S. found that out of over 10,000 artists, 87% are male, and 85% are white. To make matters work, studies by various museums in the US show that only 5.6 percent of women artists are women artists of color and their work is generally considered of low value.
However, it is artists like Nidhi who against all odds are working on breaking the stereotypical barriers in the industry. Their paintings are a portrayal of inner beauty and strength.
“We do not always see women portrayed as the faces of strength, so it is always nice to see artists portraying women in a completely different and more positive light,” Sara Ester, an art enthusiast living in San Francisco, USA, who believes there should be more artists like Nidhi out there.
