Her brush strokes paint freedom for women.
In a melange of multiple hues, her eyes stand out. Exhibiting volumes of confidence in her tender frame, she dares you to deny her flight of freedom. She is explicitly defiant, demanding to breathe free, to break away from any shackles that tie her down in the name of morality, society and social mores.
“That is why I named it 'Explicit Stance',” said Priyanka Nijhawan, who painting it. “Our society is still at a nascent stage when it comes to women’s emancipation. Agreed that women have started working and are better educated too but they are still not free. Why cannot we roam around without any fear? Why are catcalls, eve-teasing an accepted norm in our society? We must take a strong stance,” the 27-year-old amateur artist said.
The essence of all the 10 paintings displayed at her exhibition 'The Power of Affirmation', which concluded at the India Habitat Centre on Saturday, is a deep seated desire to feel liberated, a quest for a safe environment which is a right and not a privilege. So we see a little girl blowing bubbles without a care in the world in 'Nonchalant', a mix media on canvas juxtaposed with a frail old woman, her steely grey eyes shaming the unsafe world. “Rapes and molestations are not age-centric crimes as many would choose to believe. It shocks me when I read reports on a toddler or an 80-year-old woman being sexually assaulted. What kind of perversity our society has come to?” asked Nijhawan, who “deeply” read about women’s issues during the two years she prepared for her UPSC.
In the far end corner of the exhibition is another pair of eyes that look hauntingly at you. Her head and face covered in a niqaab, the painting is an irony of sorts, titled 'Freedom Calling'. The oxymoron does not escape this correspondent and Nijhawan spots the thought, “I named it so deliberately. While we are sending our girls to school, we still control their attire in the name of religion. There is no absolute freedom.”
Nijhawan started painting “as a hobby” with no specific theme in mind. After years of drawing Ganesha, Buddha and landscapes, it was her stint with UPSC studies that took her deeper into social issues ailing women in the country. “I read extensively about the condition of women in India but the real turning point came in 2013 after the Nirbhaya rape case. It shook me to the core and angered me. I took to canvas to express my agony and helplessness. It was then that my paintings found the voice that was missing initially,” she stated.
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 "Priyanka Nijhawan's painting")
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