NDNJ's studio blog

  common themes of  similar  means: WAR  'Art is meant to comfort the disturbed and disturb the comforted' said Banksy. My blog, which all of you have kindly chosen to come by, explores the intersection between literature, science, culture and art, and how different aspects of our man-crafted world intermingle in both intended and naturalistic mannerisms. War for instance, a man-made construct is spoken about in the art of the very storyteller I quoted in the opening of this piece . I wonder how other forms of art explore the same. And so here's how. For this post, I have examined how war and its impact on children has been portrayed in a literary source and a non-literary source. ‘Persepolis’ by Marjane Satrapi published in 2000, is a graphic novel depicting her tumultuous journey, growing up in war-torn Iran with the extremism of the Islamic Revolution on one end and the Iran-Iraq war on the other. Through Marji's eyes, readers witness the disruption of a normal ...

there is   Power, Fear… and Respect? ‘Nandini, your head is like a crazy ball!’ The words of my very critical art professor for whom I have not only utmost respect but even more fear, the shivering kind, the kind that makes my toes tingle and my chest hollow. Interesting, the effect a 4 foot 10, skinny, 60-something-year-old lady wearing an organic block printed suit and mauve lipstick has on me. Her appearance is simple, but not simple as in boring, simple as in clear, almost as clear as her voice when she critiques or even appreciates my work, almost as clear as the way her mouth manages to produce the most well-spoken words. More often than not, I compare the way one speaks to the fillet of a fish (although my vegetarianism has no bearing on this analogy), cleanly pronounced words are like a perfectly done pink salmon while the garbled ones are like what you find inside of sloppy tins of sardines. Somehow, my professor speaks as an experienced poissonier cuts his fish. On the da...

Why 'Phul' became the 'Tarre' of Indian Art 'why flowers became the stars of Indian art' NOW, Mughals were fascinated by three things:  art, gardens and art that showcased their gardens Painting of Babur supervising his Islamic Garden underscoring his love for Islamic florals   Below is an anecdote from my Extended Essay from IB Visual Arts on the origin of the Paisley ‘Paisleys’ were seen in Kashmiri shawls which can be seen in seventeenth-century Mughal miniature paintings, where they appear as part of Mughal court dress.  In these portraits, the shawls are long and narrow with a shallow band of decoration at each end. The decorated panel consists of rows of slender, naturalistically depicted flowering plants presented against a plain ground and bordered by smaller versions of a similar pattern in a different colour.  This floral motif of Persian influence was fused with 17th-century Mughal art traditions to create a delicate Indo-Persian motif that blended t...

  My first encounter with the idea of periods was strange. I was a complete novice to the world of womanhood. In 5 th grade my school teachers held a homeroom lecture on puberty, ensuring that the boys and girls across the grade were separated. A very strategic and controlled set of words was employed to ensure that children walked only the directed path the teachers tried to carve out. ‘Don’t talk to too many people about it if you don't have to’ ‘Don’t answer queries from the boys about what was covered in the girl’s session’ I have had discussions with my father where the topic of menstruation happened to come up, to which I was given a rather silent response, teaching me at an early age that this must not be spoken of. I grew up in a household that didn’t impose any restrictions upon me for having cycles, which although seems to be rather oblivious, for many women across several third-world countries or deeply cultural or religious settings, the same is a luxury. Even the mere...

  Over the course of 3 weeks, everything I was learning was being translated into a large-scale self-portrait in charcoal and then in color. These almost allowed me to understand my face, my expression, and my physical form. When diving into this, I knew that I had to go beyond that physical form and bring out the thought behind the expression. Other than the Second Face website, I also looked at masks from the Metropolitan Museum of Art and some other apps/sites. I heavily immersed myself in the different possibilities of mask-making. The interconnections between culture, society, identity, character, and design came together most interestingly and beautifully to deliver a sense of reflection and contempt to the viewer. The interview created a very open space for me to let go, I also went back to old journals, sketchbooks, and notebooks to understand what was going on. Many times you don't realize the kind of situation you put yourself in at the moment. I got the chance to recolle...