Faces In Daily Races with Pooja Gupta

How has creating art supported your healing journey?

Creating art for years, my healing began to happen in ways I didn't even realize at first. For many years I saw art as a skill, when really it was my passion. Now I paint to escape, getting so immersed that it works like a meditation, taking me away from tortured thoughts and unnecessary outbursts. I pour my heart onto a silent listener instead - my canvas. While creating, I don't think, feel, or hear anything that's outside or unnecessary, but only the calling of my inner ideas. My dreams and thoughts have changed to productive healing actions as my days are being spent on making something new, making something better. Having a tangible creation to show for my emotions is slowly giving me a new sense of self worth.

What does it mean for you to roar? Can you share about a time you overcame feeling silenced?

For me roaring is coming out with passion. It could be silent, it could be loud, but it's a creation that would rather help thousands out there instead of wrecking them. To me it's pouring out fearlessly, strongly enough to be heard, to share the message that we can do anything! Just recently during the quarantine, I was silenced by my own feelings of worthlessness, when inside I just wanted to show the world that I can create something too. Normally, I'd get lost in saying words that would never be heard. But this time, I chose to show them. I overcame myself and took action to create, thinking that that was the only way left to show them that I was worth believing in. And it worked. For me.

What prompted this art series?

'Faces in Daily Races' is an example of my traditional oil paint works. But in honesty, I don't have just one style of art. My work, my art, is constantly changing, and what prompts this constant flow is the need and availability of the hour. I have always believed in abundance, so even on days when I won't have paint, I'd fill pages with charcoal, or when I won't have brushes, I'd use my fingers to paint. The idea was always to allow myself to honestly let out whatever was in the heart, on to the canvas. No matter how.

What advice would you give to artist that want to pursue their craft, but don't know where to begin?

My advice is to not give too much thought to doing something big every time. Don't just create to get somewhere, to exhibit or publish or be recognized as an artist, but to experience doing what you feel like doing. Everybody's perspective on a creation is going to be different, so the ultimate result should be satisfying ourselves, even if it's just by the first step of creating. The trick is to make a place where your stuff is kept and just keep your will power ticking. And then you feel the importance and need of creation in this universe. Your craft is a new gift for the world, allow it to exist as is.

What is one thing you want women to know today?

Feel it in your bones, believe that we can do a lot. We are a much prettier and hardworking lot than men - with sentiments, emotions, passions, and care and maturity, which can put life in any creation of ours. So let's roar out in the world and not bury ourselves in self-made graves of fear and submissiveness.

Pooja Gupta is an artist with an MFA in Drawing & Painting. She creates artwork on an order basis and teaches young students of all training levels with a passion for the arts. She is a homemaker and a mother of two, on her way finding her voice and the courage to share it out loud through her artwork. To get in touch, email her at poojagg2770@gmail.com Or reach out via Instagram @poojaguptaart