Working with Monoprints

We all make prints everyday – the prints left behind on our bed sheets when we wake up, the prints the clothes leave on our body, the prints our hand creates on the steamed shower glass, the print of our coffee mug on the marble countertop, the prints of car tyres on the black after running over a puddle.

In my Fine Art pathway session I learnt how to Print. I explored three variations of print as a method for expressing a word I chose prior to the session – Skin. This world is in relation to my Manifesto project – Borderless which deals with an issue our world is still facing today – Racism.

Why Skin?

Skin is a word which is personal to me. Born in a conservative indian society I was always pushed towards meeting the criterias of european standards of beauty. Dark skin was looked down upon and the beauty industry made huge profits over it by propagating the need of fairness creams. The cosmopolitan western world added fuel to the fire, especially the aftermath of 9/11. During my summer school in the USA in 2016, I was constantly stopped and searched for ID, be it the airport immigration or while buying groceries at Wholefoods. My mother said, “It’s because you’re the same color as a muslim”. This broke my heart. It shouldn’t matter if I were a hindu, muslim or buddhist, it shouldn’t matter if I were from India, Pakistan or China, it shouldn’t matter if I were brown, black or coloured. My soul is worth more than my skin.

The following images are my printmaking experiments with the word ‘Skin’.