Published: Vervemagazine.in, May 2014

Soghra Khurasani works are layered with social and historical references and she speaks up for women. Through printmaking as well as new media work, she is able to explore and express ideas of beauty and violence, using an incredible attention to detail

31-year-old Soghra Khurasani comes from a family that had migrated from Khorasan in Persia to Vishakhapatnam. She graduated in 2010 with a degree in printmaking from the Maharaja Sayajirao University in Baroda. Khurasani uses printmaking; sight-specific installations that use cloth and wire mesh, and using the colour red, to voice her opinion.

She carved a triptych woodcut of throbbing hearts calling them ‘Braveheart’, in 2009. In the aftermath of the 2012 Delhi rape, Khurasani created a series of large and small woodcuts in 2013, where her woodcuts depicted a volcano.

‘She explains them as emotional outbursts, a pent up frustration of her disappointment with people, her rejection of the years of violence she had witnessed for the last two decades, where the victims were primarily women. Khurasani’s red represents exuberance, a spout, a flow and a relentless energy, that is feminine and unrepressed,’ explains Sumesh Sharma in his introduction to her recent works.

4 Questions with the artist, Soghra Khurasani:

Artistic motivation “It’s a medium where I can explain my inner thoughts and feelings.”

An artist that finds place at your home “Zarina Hashmi.”

Your art reflects “I believe that we are losing our freedom to express ourselves, and that every human should be free. This theme finds a place in most of my works.”

If not an artist, you would be a… “Cricketer.”

One Day It Will Come Out, Solo Debut Soghra Khurasani, curated by Hena Kapadia & Sumesh Sharma, is on until June 7, 2014 at TARQ,  Dhanraj Mahal, Apollo Bunder, Colaba, Mumbai, from 11am-6pm, Monday through Saturday.