Nahal, Mending

Acrylic on Canvas. 20 x 18 in.

From the Artist:

This work is inspired by Kintsugi, a Japanese technique of mending broken pots with gold that honours the cracks, ultimately making the rehabilitated piece more valuable than its original form. I see myself and the women I have come across within the framework of Kintsugi. Every tragedy makes a crack in us, we try to mend it, and it adds more depth to our being.

While we tend to ourselves, society interjects with its many fixes, at times earnest and others sanctimonious, solicited and unsolicited. The hands in the painting are trying to “help”. Someone hands out the term sabr (صبر), rather endearingly, rather condescendingly. The term is romanticised; silent suffering is classified as a virtue that women should aspire for. Someone hands out a rosary to drown miseries in prayer, someone tries to tame the woman with expected roles, others offer intoxication. Someone is breaching personal space and disrespecting dignity of the person by coming too close (often the “healers”). Someone offers a cloth to cover the body with— maybe if you can’t see the issue, it will cease to exist? .