“Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth” oscar wilde
Prembabu Sharma
The human face has many subtle personas, and most of us are alert to what pleases us in facial expressions. In addition the mask used for performances and rituals are camouflage of different thoughts, but the question Aarti Zaveri solicits to the audiences is that are we not wearing a mask in our day to day life or are we always portraying the actual us? Her new series of paintings focus on the expression of ones consciousness which she portrays through her masks series. At the first glance the masks painted by Aarti recalls the serine facial expressions, her focal point lies in the different eye expressions of the masks she portrays that expresses the hunger for power, pain, agony, wickedness, suffering and also pleasure.
Most of the time mask is worn to prevent from showing the real ‘you’ and to prevent the recognition of the true identity or character. But, in my opinion Aarti’s portrayal of mask coveys a message of positive pretence. Her exposé of mask states that every one of us carries a divine light within us and a positive energy and one should search for the real self. Aarti has play with an arrey of colours and has dipicted each mask in a unique way. The paintings show lot of strenght that is refelected in tranquility.
Aarti states “My masks are not telling you to renounce your materialistic thing, but, to renounce the greed, selfishness, jealousy etc. that the mind beholds. That is the real problem today. It is blocking your way in reaching within yourselves as I call it the center.”Aarti’s works wants to speak that the most important kind of freedom is to be what you really are. Its clear from her works that if one gives up ones ability to feel, and in exchange put on a mask. Yes, there cannot be any large scale revolution until there is a personal revolution on an individual level. It must happen from inside. Freedom to feel oneself is what her Mask speaks about. Aarti started the series of mask in the process while she was making portraits. While making the portraits she came across many different personas and the time she spent with the models led her to also study the expressions of the eyes and what they are communicate to her. Making the portraits made her see the real expressions which according to her are not the same as seen by the ordinary eyes. It was a kind of turning point in her journey of art when she realize to paint the mask series which was a medium to communicate with the audience to express and experience the bodily processes of different action and expression.
Shortly to be commence, a unique painting exhibition proposes to highlight various masks hiding emotions at various moments of life and vice-versa will be held on the 29th of August 2011 till the 5th of August 2011 in Rabindra Bhawan, Lait Kala Akademi, New Delhi.
