Basita Shah, Goldfish in Jelly

Goldfish in Jelly Basita Shah, oil on canvas, 9 x 12 in. A thin brown woman with long, straight black hair and rosy cheeks sits in a stone blue armchair in a moderately lit room with olive walls and chestnut brown floors. She wears a green jacket an…

Oil on Canvas, 9 x 12 in.

Accompanied Text

Post August 5, 2019. A prisoner while in their cell can hate their cot, their steel toilet bowl, the metal mirror, the iron bars, the murderous inmates, the food and the halls.

But here, here we begin to hate our own faces, our floral curtains, our Persian carpets, our cuisines, our elders, our youth, our children, our families. Because we’re incarcerated inside our own homes. Our bodies. Our minds. We are subjected to experiments and the results baffle us. The war waged on us is beyond logic and beyond reason. It’s beyond occupation, beyond contempt.