Author: Salonee Parekh

Hello and welcome! I am Saloni. I am an Art student at Kent State University and my concentration is Painting. My life revolves around ART and I look for meanings in everything I do. After my 10th grade, I opted as a science student and pursued my degree in Physics. My journey from Physics to Arts was a roller coaster ride but it was when I learned the most about myself. This is a space for essays on personal experiences and ideas that have influenced my work. If you love art and want to know about stories behind my paintings then you are the right place. Keep in touch !! Love Love.

Paint and stitch and stitch and paint!

Posted on by Salonee Parekh

When I made my final paintings last semester my main goal was to redesign animals and look for imagery in the blots. I think I made around 10 to 12 of them, I noticed that creating new animal forms was not my ultimate focus anymore. I just respond to what I saw. I painted my first responses. (gave and still gives me belly flops)

I was seeing so many things in the blots or the chance textures that I creating . In the beginning, I was seeing animals, patterns, and repetition. This process made me like a ‘seeing’ gadget. This changed how I saw everything not only inside but also outside of that rectangle. Observing openly and looking more than itself brought in so many good things. I realized how large and magnanimous this world is.

“Looking openly gives you agency, the power to become responsive to every square millimeter of what you’re seeing.”- Jerry Saltz

My work is cerebral and a dairy of thoughts. Still continuing with automatic drawing, I uncover all the different levels that exist beneath. I am interested in investigating an unfettered mind. Stitching fabrics or canvases is serving a symbol for layers buried as impressions, memories or just flashes of dreams that are stored somewhere beneath. [Raw canvas and stitching is godly!] 

I want to paint and stitch and stitch and paint. Sometimes, I feel I am not the doer , I feel art is using me to reproduce itself and I enjoy watching it flow and improve with each piece. I don’t know what I will come up with next but I am excited for it!

“My head feels heavy”

Posted on by Salonee Parekh

Surrealist drawing in ink, charcoal and pen.

My Mom has always inspired and encouraged me to meditate. She lives by the words of Sri Sri Ravi Shankarji “If the mind is a kite the breath is the thread. The longer the thread, the higher the kite can go.” To the most part I agree with what he said. This drawing portrays the other part when I agree to disagree. When anxiety kicks in the kite (mind) gets heavy and breathing doesnt help at all. It gets uncontrollable and thick.

I used Ink blot technique [

  1. Find some good quality paper and acrylic paint from an art supply shop. …
  2. Take a sheet of paper, fold it in half and open it out again like a book.
  3. Mix your paint to the consistency of pouring cream and drip it onto one side of the fold.
  4. Fold the paper back over again and press down gently.

] for the kite. And automatic drawing to express my subconcious. (  In automatic drawing, the hand is allowed to move “randomly” across the paper. )

For the bottom part of my drawing I used the chance technique. (chance chan(t)s 1a: something that happens unpredictably without discernible human intention or observable cause. art ärt 4a: the conscious use of skill, taste, and creative imagination in the production of aesthetic objects; also : works so produced. )

All these techniques where used by surrealist artists which I am I look forward to using more. I have also attached some detail shots of my work.

Size 6 and size 10

Posted on by Salonee Parekh

My friend has a beautiful body. Gorgeous rolls and stretch marks. Every inch of her body is how it should be . I pick up the smallest size from the closet where she picks the largests. We are very different and people see our differences but when are together I find similar things, things we have in common has bonded us together. She is learning to love her body. And here is my little effort to make her feel loved.

Here is a small series of photographs which portrays two different body sizes put together as diptychs. I used minimal lightings and with strong shadows which follows the body line, giving hint of impermanence of physical appearances. I decided to take black and white photographs which helps both the images to connect visually better and also helps in focusing on just the shape of the body rather than distracting it with complexity of skin color. I think both sides of diptychs turned out great and ALL BODIES LOOK GORGEOUS .

The best part of my project was when my friend said “I love when you make me your model for your art, it makes me fall in love with my body all over again.” Art makes us see things we cannot see and do not want to see. It brings in changes, changes in perspectives and perceptions. It is a beautiful thing!

#1 , 8′ x 6′ each
#2, 16’x 24′ each.

#3, 6′ x 8′ each.

Nowhere to Everywhere

Posted on by Salonee Parekh
Oil painting, 75×55 inches.

 

Missing someone is not bed of roses. Months feel like years and years feel
like eternity. Everyday you think about them and dream about doing daily chores
with them. It just gets harder. But who would you blame? I would blame all
those chemicals and hormones in my body that released when I was with my
special someone. You make them feel like the most important person you ever met
because the voice in your head says, “That they are the one you always
wanted.” The depth of emotions you have for them will surprise you.But
now, when they are gone your system gets confused and shaken up.

You wish to be with them the entire time. It takes a great deal to control
and handle interpersonal relationship empathetically when people decide to
leave .

Distance and the feeling of missing had made me physically present and
mentally somewhere in the arms of my special one. I dreamt of a safe place. I
dreamt of a place where only love resides and a person who loves me
unconditionally. Ready to accompany through rough patches of life. Visioning
everything with them left me in pain when they were gone.

The painting speaks about bewilderness and a place in my thoughts that
actually doesn’t exist. It gives thought to illusion and a disconnection from
the present moment. Feeling of nor floating neither existing and just
breathing.

The figure in the painting looks at peace which is contradictory to the
emotion going through the work is because falling in love taught me a million
things. Little things and big things like unlabeling fake love, short love,
long relations, dating, serious relations, committed relationship, etc. I
learned to love love just the way it is. Being there and caring for them no
matter what, has given me a sense of strength, courage and a belief that love
will cure worries. Which reflects in the calm face and posture of the figure.

Despite, being in knowledge there is a desire to go from this state of
(non-existing place) nowhere to everywhere (a place where I feel wanted and
loved).

 

 

“I can do without a lipstick”.

Posted on by Salonee Parekh
Fragmented lipstick, Graphite pencil drawings, approx 7×13 inchs each.

I fragmented my lipstick four times and observed 12 times but I couldnt find anything inside a lipstick that could make a person beautiful.

Don’t eat your lipstick, Ink and lipstick on paper, 24×16.

Whenever I apply the only red lipstick I own, it disappears in minutes because I eat all of it. It’s a tough struggle to look ‘oh la la’ all round the clock. No, that is not my thing. I’ll just eat this shea butter problem off once and for all.

Facts: Ladies who apply lipstick everyday, eats 4 pounds of lipstick in their lifetime.

I really enjoyed creating this drawing as I used lipstick oil and ink on paper. The mixture of oil and lipstick did not let ink set on paper and that gave me a really good texture and effect. It is always fun experimenting with unconventional mediums. (So far, turmeric is my favourite pigment.)

“Lost in translation”

Posted on by Salonee Parekh
I call myself an introvert. Because, I can absolutely relate with what Huffpost has to say about introverts. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/introvert-signs-am-i-introverted_n_5a2ae103e4b073789f6982f4 Well, Google says, ” in·tro·vert/ˈintrəˌvərt, noun : shy, reticent person.” But no google, I am nor shy neither reticent. Moving to a new place and having complete strangers around me forced me to break my boundaries and go outside my comfort zone. It became more difficult for me when I started working and met hundreds of new faces everyday. It was too new peopley outside. They are all beautiful. They smile the same way but they greet differently. They all look different and talked differently. They cannot eat spicy like I do but they all love pizzas. It is very human to connect everything you see with something you already know or love. I was trying to find the sense of belonging in the new country of 50 states. I was lost and didn’t know were I belong or who I am. I loved Kent, but I wasn’t native and “I do not belong here” concept kept me struggling. I was meeting hundred new faces everyday, shaking hands, smiling and secretly trying to search for identical characteristics in all of them, just to take comfort and satisfy my need to belong. The drawing follows the state of my mind which I would describe it as ‘fog of war’ or ‘lost in translation’ phase. Ahh, I was tired of searching for connectedness where, I wasn’t getting any closer to answering the question of why we feel the need to belong. With time I grew, learned to embrace differences and newness. It took a long time to understand that I was resident of this world and I belong here. To my surprise, I now revere differences. Sign of positive change and growth? OH yes! This series of drawings shows my process of growing and wrestling with bittersweet experiences. I am slowly, blending in and making it feel like home.

“The beauty of bare skin and bare body is an art in itself .”

Posted on by Salonee Parekh

It’s definitely a thrill to receive an offer letter from abroad and it is something that one celebrates! Straight away, my mind was buzzing with questions like what is my university like? Which places I will get to visit? I must start planning my bucket list and a hundred more questions. But when the time comes around to packing your luggage and move across oceans for college, that excitement is no doubt tinged with fear.

I am an Indian and India is a vast and mystical land of cultures, languages, religions and races. It is a country which is emotionally driven and culturally rich. Moving to the United States was a big shift. The United States is described as a “melting pot” in which different cultures come together and add flavours to American culture. I observe, learn and cherish every experience. I am fortunate to have the best of both worlds.

Lot of my work holds the essence of Indian culture and American ideology. I was taught to cover or drape my body with beautiful sarees or colourful dresses for society to perceive me as an ideal woman. I was not against those notions as I have always taken a liking to wear our cultural dresses. Nudity is closely associated with sexuality and sexuality has a huge stigma around it in India. The idea of wearing skin revealing clothes or nudity for that matter is always frowned upon. My ignorance towards appreciating my own body and being confident enough to wear skin revealing clothes never occurred to as an issue until I moved here. America is buoyant and substantial and open-ended. On one hand, India taught me to worship my body and “preserve it”, America illuminates and expands my thoughts to loving my body and appreciating all body positivity. These photographs and paintings are interwoven in a combination of ideologies that have influenced my growth.

Furthermore, I like to experiment with costumes, lights and shadows created mainly by the human body in my paintings and photographs. The beauty of bare skin and bare body is an art in itself and playing around with those as my ingredients for art that I create. Art has changed my perception of human bodies forever.