This week we welcome Nafisa Poonawala, an India-born, New York City-based multidisciplinary artist whose work sits at the crossroads of art, psychology, and movement. She conducts her visual explorations primarily through alcohol ink and movement meditations, delving into the profound and often overlooked aspects of the human experience.
Her body of work explores the complexity of female trauma, the boundaries of love and polyamory, and the intricate emotional landscapes of human beings. She draws inspiration from the beauty and resilience of nature with fluidity. She is passionate about creating communal spaces where creativity becomes a practice of self-discovery, and she does that through the mediums of alcohol inks, yoga, and dance. In her words:
“My work explores the visceral landscape of trauma held within the female body, particularly the deep and often unspoken scars of female genital mutilation (FGM). Through the haphazard juxtaposition of the layers of alcohol ink, I attempt to depict the complexity of this experience—its pain, silence, and enduring impact on the female psyche. The medium’s uncontrollable nature mimics the chaos of emotions that surface without warning, anger, grief, and numbness, and its unpredictable flow allows for a sense of expansion and release, as the colors bleed and merge. The palette is meant to evoke the deep entanglement of trauma and the feminine, the rough edges of the scars where pain ends and pleasure begins.
“Through abstraction, I attempt to mirror the fractured relationship many women who experience FGM have with their bodies, where pain is interwoven with desire and sexual identity. Through these visual meditations, I seek to honor the complexity of survival, the body’s paradoxical capacity to hold and transcend pain. My art is an invitation to confront the unseen, to witness the silent echoes of trauma, and to find a space of reflection and connection where healing and transformation can begin.”
See more of Nafisa’s work on her Instagram.
