Sanika Bapat

Computer Science major, Philosophy minor

First and foremost, I am a painter. The material being of the piece is more important to me than the image. Painting, to me, is the embodiment of experience, idea, and desire. I paint flesh, as the life we lead etches itself on our skin. It is the evidence of life lived. When I am making a painting, I look for references and sources that push the limits of representation of a body and the workings of the flesh. I aim to work at the boundary of abstraction and figuration, working situations, light, color, form, and fragments that make the viewer to experience the physicality and sensory quality of the paint and the body. 

Meditations on Skin

oil paint on canvas

This project is an assemblage of figurative paintings and drawings seeking to examine the body and my ability to represent it. I began as a flat painter experimenting with the planes and curves of the body as a smooth uniform surface. This allowed me to experiment with colour and form and the dependencies inherent in them. However, my work changed as my focus on flesh grew, like de Kooning's statement that ‘Flesh was the reason oil painting was invented’. My work with oil changed to become more physical and sensual. I work with the tension in paint to create the physicality of flesh while retaining the form and crevices of the body and the folds of skin. I apply paint in heavy layers so that it behaves like flesh in the sense that it can be pulled and pushed in the similitude of the body.

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