Everybody deals with pain in different ways. Some avoid it, some fight it, some succumb to it. In the case of Sravanthi Juluri, she internalised it and used art to tell her story, of struggle and inspiration.
Starting up
While she did not officially start painting until the age of 23, Sravanthi was always fascinated by art. “I was always interested in paining and art; I wanted to be the best in all my painting competitions in school. But most of my work was completely abstract, so they were always rejected,” says Sravanthi. Though she was constantly experimenting with fine arts from a very young age, her real motivation came from a trip to Berkeley, California, which inspired her to take it up as a career choice. “I went to Berkeley on a holiday, and there I chanced upon a blue sheet of glass that completely mesmerised me. I wanted to do something with it. So I decided to study glass art. Most of my earlier works are glass paintings,” shares the now 33-year-old.
Struggle for Freedom
While Sravanthi was achieving tremendous success with her career as an artist, she was going through tremendous pain and agony on a personal front. “I was undergoing a lot of problems in my personal life. I was subjected to domestic violence and it was a tremendous struggle for me to get out of a really bad marriage and a very traumatic phase in my life. There were so many emotions bottled up inside me, I used my paintings as a platform to express my pain, and anguish and anger,” she shares. After her personal experience, she went around talking to other women who underwent similar crisis, with many of them being subjected not just to domestic violence but also to sexual abuse. “Many women are treated as toys. Objectification of women is one of the serious issues today, and I have highlighted that through my paintings. Many women broke down when they saw my paintings as it struck a chord with them,” explains Sravanthi.
Current Works
Sravanthi’s exhibition titled ‘The Journey of a Butterfly’ will be unveiled today at 6:30 pm at the Goethe-Zentrum. Speaking about the exhibits, she says, “This exhibition is about how a woman comes out of her struggle and liberates herself by realising her potential. It’s about my own personal struggle and that of many other women.”
A mother to a five-year-old, Sravanthi gave up glass paintings for a couple of years since it was dangerous to practise in front of her son. “In this exhibition, I have used acrylic colours on a canvas instead. The fluidity in the paintings is because of the different emotions that were inside me. At times, I used to paint for seven hours at a stretch because I was going through so many emotions. That is what I have tried to portray in my paintings,” she said, adding that the entire exhibit took her two months.
Moving forward
From her struggles, Sravanthi has realised the imminent need for gender sensitisation while going forward. “People must change the way the treat gender right from childhood. In most families, young boys are taught to go and play cricket and girls are made to play with dolls and kitchen sets. This affects the way men perceive women and women themselves are insecure about their own abilities. I think both genders must be treated equally right from their childhood,” she concluded on a philosophical note.
The Journey of a Butterfly exhibition will be on display till March 23