ARTIST BHARTI PRAJAPATI ON SHEDDING INHIBITIONS AND INVITING CREATIVITY INTO OUR LIVES

Contemporary Indian artist Bharti Prajapati firmly believes in the importance of inviting creativity into our daily lives. Art has helped her to navigate the unexpected twists and turns of life, and she finds that this can be a powerful medium for everyone, not just professional artists.

Bharti Prajapati is an accomplished artist who became a painter after leaving a decade-long career as a textile designer. While a student at the National Institute of Design, she observed the craft traditions of tribal women in Kutch Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and other states. These experiences have inspired her paintings that celebrate the role of women in preserving India’s cultural heritage. There is also a strong feeling of rhythm and interconnectedness in Bharti’s scenes, not only among the women but with nature.

She writes:

Art has helped me to handle the ups and downs of life differently. When I look at a problem, it’s more about asking how I do perceive this and how I would go about this? Instead of saying to myself, this is a problem and I will have to solve it.

Art has given me a calmness of the mind. I look at anything and everything more creatively.

The thought process that you go through as an artist is a vital part of creative growth. I compare it to the growth process of a seed into a tree. You plant an idea, like a seed, in your mind. Sometime, somewhere, somehow, about somebody… it is just there, and the seed keeps growing into a small plant in your mind. It could grow immediately or after a few years. And when it is ready to be taken out and replanted somewhere, you feel the urge to create.

As I discussed in my interview on Laasya Art’s blog last fall, I think it’s important for everyone to invite creativity into their lives. Fear seems to hold us back from expressing ourselves in today’s society. But it’s about time that we shed the whole worried attitude of how our expression will look and what will happen, and instead we must be more creative in ourselves and follow what makes us feel happy.

Our grandmothers, our mothers used to knit, sew and embroider. It was their way of being creative. And in the rural villages, people paint directly onto their walls without any inhibition. We can find our own ways of being creative too. It could be singing, writing, sculpting…

My work is theme-based and I prefer to create a series for a few years at a time, rather than individual paintings — I get very focused on working towards one particular theme and do not deviate on anything else during that time.

The metaphors and symbols in the Earth series come from Hindu mythology, while the scenes of dancing are inspired by the women and landscape of Kutch. I also reference the body and its phases of life. Like springtime is early growth, or young energy. We live each season over the course of our lives. We are connected to nature and the whole universe in that way. I think it’s all very, very beautiful.

My deep-rooted love for the art and the people of India started with the tribal women and their crafts, but it was just sitting there, inside of my mind, until I started painting and putting it on canvas. That is what I hope shines through my work.

– Bharti Prajapati

For any sales inquiries on artist Bharti Prajapati’s paintings, please get in touch at +1 650-770-9088 or info@laasyaart.com. You can also read her interview on the blog last fall exploring her various series and her sources of inspiration.

— Sonia Nayyar Patwardhan