The Open Studio / Nandita Basak
Nandita Basak
Inorganic organs
A face with no eyes still feels every eye on it
Lipsticks stand in a row like soldiers waiting to be chosen.
On the shelves, plaster heads smile the same small smile.
A face has no eyes, only pearls and paper popcorn at the ears.
An ear under cloudy plastic asks, Am I audible?
The hibiscus is the reddest thing here. Even it is painted.
Pins hold everything still, like specimens on a black wall.
The work
In Inorganic organs, Nandita Basak lays out the body as a set of parts. Eyes, lips, a nose, an ear and a tongue sit in clear plastic sleeves held by pins. She paints them in gouache on Nepali handmade paper. Beside them are digital prints of her photographs. Thin white lines join each piece like a diagram. Text such as "Last seen at 3:00 am" reads like a message on a phone. Basak takes words like these from daily life and social media. She uses them to question who watches a woman's body.
In the artist’s words
“I observe how people engage with items and how they choose objects to represent themselves. As a woman, I recognise surveillance and social judgement, so my works have words of interrogation in them. I use industrial media and advertisements for daily accessories to reflect the controlling role of social interactions, especially on women's bodies, in sarcastic and taunting registers.”
- Theme
- Surveillance of the body
- Material
- Gouache on Nepali handmade paper and digital prints of self photograph
- Size
- 121 × 121 × 3 cm
- Year
- 2025
- Edition
- 1 copy
- Framed
- Yes
- About the artist
- Sorojini naidu school of arts and communication
- From
- Delhi
- Code
- RC-4194
