Exploring the schism between inner realm and the vast world outside

In her installations and painted images, Prajakta Potnis exhibits an interest in the differences and the similarities, as perceived between human skin and urban walls by her. The idea is to generate curiosity for both boundaries between the outer and the inner space of human nature and manmade constructions.

Living in a city calls for a tough outer shell in order to tackle life’s challenges and literal, material shelter of four walls. Like the human skin, walls stand at the boundary between interior and exterior space. Both being vulnerable, the artist pays attention to wounds, disruptions and scars, giving a new perspective of seemingly familiar surroundings.

She began analyzing her own skin and then proceeded to scrutinize the texture and function of real walls, ones that circumscribe as well as protect the inner space. Once the walls start to crumble in her canvases, they create an entirely different space, leading us to a sometimes startling, new world.

Her work tends to evolve on acknowledgment and appreciation of the restricted private space like the interior of a typical middle-class house where ‘feminine’ colors and objects seem to embellish the interior spaces. It though, often serves as a starting point for a more complex search and deeper observations.

The artist builds a paradoxical situation around existing human habitation wherein walls are a metaphor of the closely guarded human territories. She subtly creates notations of the disregard and fragility inherent in everyday situations through and within them.

Inspired by the familiar objects and landscapes, she transforms the realities drawn from everyday life into coded dreams, creating a make-believe world she depicts as 'a fairy tale suspended in reality’. She imparts a new dimension to it by inserting fictitious characters with a curious identity of their own, exposing the fragility of desire and the impractical romanticism of dreams.