Fish Can Fly

2025

1 of 7 in Painting

Medium

Soft pastels on wood panel

Dimensions

48 × 48 in

Availability

Available — inquire

Artist statement

In this surrealist portrait, I ride a goldfish in a saree lifted above the knee to unsettle the devotional pose often used in nationalist images of Indian women. The dense pichwai-style foliage surrounds me as an overwhelming excess that presses inward rather than framing the body as an icon. My direct gaze is met by the secondary gaze of the fish, which disrupts reverence through an unexpected and disarming point of attention.