Indrani Nayar-Gall

Voice series (2024)

This body of work, with the Voice series and related titles, is a push-back against the global rise of neoconservative patriarchal models that assume male superiority to women. This pyramid structured social-religious model of patriarchy is emboldened everywhere to control women’s rights to their bodies even by infiltrating the legal system. In the U.S., we see it manifesting in the reversal of the Roe vs Wade.

Voice, interpreted simultaneously as a noun and a verb, started in 2024 with a suite of digital mixed-media work with women’s hands manipulating/destroying black metal hangers in various ways. On one hand the metal hanger, a trope of inequality and a reminder of the dark era of illegal abortion, on the other, and here, a powerful symbol of women’s protests for freedom. Manipulation of the metal hanger speaks against objectification and efforts to control our bodies. These compositions are symmetrical, iconic, similar to religious icons within various religions.

Voice–I, a symmetrical vertical composition, uses a black, red and white color palette. At the bottom against a black background appears a woman’s hand, her skin tone in black and white negative, bending, squeezing a red hanger.

Voice–II, is a sequel to Voice I but has transcended it. The black background is now a blue sky with fragmented white clouds in a vortex. She is surrounded by a lightning halo. Her dark brown fists twist sideways breaking the black hanger.

A New Deity in Town, an iconic symmetrical composition, springs from the Voice Series, a body of work that pushes back against the global rise of neoconservative patriarchal models that assume male superiority to women. This pyramid structured social-religious of patriarchy in many countries is emboldened to control women’s rights to their bodies, even by infiltrating the legal system. In the U.S., we see it manifesting in the reversal of the Roe vs Wade, in objectification of women’s bodies, compulsion of Hijab and restricting women’s rights in Iran, Afghanistan and other Islamic countries; in rising gang rape–murder culture in India, Haiti and other places.

ARTIST STATEMENT

My artistic practice springs from being surrounded by women-made cultural/ritual mark-making in my native India, more so from Bengali social-cultural practice. A multidisciplinary artivist, I use installation, work on paper, digital media, film, and collaboration to construct contemporary global narratives that echo my own experiences.

Exposure to European art has given me different tools and language, but also an urgency to de-colonize my imagination. Migrating to the US, the pressure to conform, pushed me further into being nonconformist—deconstructing colonial perspectives stimulated experimentation. My present works are about women’s bodies as sites of violence, dreams and aspirations. Using paper, fiber, yarn, ready-mades, words from scriptures derogatory to women, I stretch the limits of the conventional processes to create bodies that physically hang, stretch over the floor or wall, or create non-linear digital moving image narratives. Guiding myself intuitively, I imagine solutions or interpret concepts, when necessary create my own tools, choose appropriate material, alter or disassociate the real/obvious to create visceral, tactile or surreal experiences. My processes are individual but also collaborative and participatory. 

ABOUT THE ARTIST

A multidisciplinary feminist artist, Indrani Nayar-Gall weaves global narratives of marginalization, patriarchy, and misogyny through artivist practice at the intersection of installation, 2-D/3-D media, moving image and community engagement. Social justice themes stem from her experience growing up in India as a child of mixed north-south Indian backgrounds, and her life in the Caribbean and the U.S. with her inter-racial family. In a career spanning over thirty-five years including teaching at BFA programs and directing two documentaries, she continually expands her studio practice.

Nayar-Gall’s non-conformist work is inspired by being surrounded by women-made cultural/ritual and mark-making, evoking women’s bodies as sites of violence, dreams and aspirations. Using or combining paper, fiber, ready-mades, words/text from scriptures derogatory to women, she stretches the limits of conventional processes to create bodies that physically hang, stretch over floors or walls, or create non-linear digital moving image narratives.

Indrani has an MFA in experimental printmaking from Visva Bharati University India, a Dip.Ed. from University of West Indies Barbados, and a Graduate Certificate in Contemporary Non-Toxic Printmaking from Rochester Institute of Technology, under the guidance of the pioneer researcher prof. Keith Howard. She has received numerous awards and exhibits she regionally, nationally and internationally. Indrani is the founder of Yes She Rises LLC. Her works are in important public and private art collections including The National Art Collection of Barbados.

artist’s website

@indraninayargall

© Indrani Nayar-Gall