Chandrika Marla

Studio F3

Medium: Painting 

My work explores female identity, and is inspired by women and their relationships with others and with their own selves. In a previous career, I was a fashion designer - an experience that left me with a visual vocabulary of the female body. Today, my paintings refer to obvious parts of the feminine form. I paint the soft curves of a woman’s shoulders and breasts in simple shapes and the bold and bright colors of my native India.

I also want to show that there are parts of us that are missing. How does one find completion? How does one become whole? What has been lost along the way?

As I paint, I use my memories of events, conversations and feelings and what I call “accidental color”, to compare relationships between people, the outer and inner self, the individual and society. Do the colors live peacefully together? Are they agitated? How do they make me feel? The soft, blurry line where the colors meet is the place where these thoughts come together. But it is neither clear nor defined.

I have always been inspired by Rothko and find myself dwelling on his words, “We are for flat forms because they destroy illusion and reveal truth.”

Artist Website