After heavy rains poured down Maharashtra last month, it is time to mourn the dead and count the losses to livelihoods and property in the floods. An Iran-born artist, who made India her home 20 years ago, has been following the news of the devastation, unable to look away. Yalda Ostwar came to the country with her mother, an exporter, and has gone on to set up her own business here. Now, the people of her adopted country were suffering. It is estimated that farmers have lost crops in approximately 68.69 lakh hectares of land. “I am very emotionally connected to this country. I don't see myself as an outsider any more. Seeing the images of the flood-affected people disturbed me. What could I do to bring a sense of relief, to play even a small part?” Ostwar thought. The answer came resounding and clear. A professional artist for a decade-and-a-half, Ostwar decided to hold an exhibition of her paintings whose proceeds would be spent on helping the farmers of Maharashtra who have been affected by the floods. A 10-day show, “Beyond The Face” will open at the Vesavar Art Gallery on October 12. On display are faces, but not of the usual kind. The works do not care about depicting likenesses. They explore the unseen inner life of thought, memory and feeling. “Each face becomes a mirror — holding fragments of pain, longing, resilience, and fleeting joy," says Ostwar, who lives in Pune and is also a trained pistol shooter. According to the gallery, Ostwar has “stripped away the realism and intensified the psychological and emotional impact of her work. A mouth may become a wound, an eye transforms into a portal and a shadow carries the weight of memory. These are not just portraits of individuals, but reflections of the collective human experience — deeply personal, yet universally resonant”. “What we see outwardly in people is the just an illusion. I believe that emotions or the individual's character is much deeper. My collection goes beyond the face, that's why it is faceless. I have not shown specific eyes or lips but you can see the emotions without even seeing the actual figure in the painting,” says Ostwar. “Through fragmented and layered compositions, her works dissolve boundaries of gender, culture, and identity, urging viewers to look beyond appearances and engage with the emotions, memories, and thoughts beneath the surface,” says Pranali Harpude, artist and art curator of Vesavar. The exhibition is an invitation to viewers to enter “a shared space of reflection that reminds us that identity is never fixed, emotions transcend cultures and resilience is embedded in every human story". Ostwar has been making art since very young. It stayed with her, even as her life meandered through crests and troughs. She witnessed a bankruptcy in her family as well as personal upheaval, and the pain and the hard times were expressed in her art. “I decided I will be a full-time artist. No matter how tough things get – and being an artist is not easy – I would make art,” she says. “It would bring relief to me, if I can use art to bring a little relief to people who are suffering,” she adds.
