KOCHI: When you look at Neetha Joseph’s artworks, you are bound to be thrust — albeit with a little discomfort— into the dark crevices of your own mind. They are gory, but cannot be dismissed, much like the ways of a twisted world. “I think today’s world expects all of us to be nonchalant. People are eager to deny and dismiss the darker facets of their emotions like anger, extreme depression or crisis. We are often asked to mellow down. But through my artwork, I want to talk about the less comfortable things,” says Neetha.
Neetha has been drawing since she was a kid who could hold crayons. Growing up, she kept art a secret. “When my friends started noticing my artworks, many of them said they could relate to those images. That is how I started putting my art out on social media,” explains the self-proclaimed dark maximalist, who is an architecture student at the Asian School of Architecture and Design Innovation.
Five notebooks to draw, two internships while still in college — Neetha’s mind is constantly on the run from chaos and that is probably where her art stems from. It’s no wonder that it takes her up to two months to complete a painting. She has to gather her thoughts and pour them onto the surface, filling every inch of the paper with details, like the unruly hair of her subject coiling into snakes and its endless spiralled body. Most of her artworks are rendered in monochrome — white ink on black paper — except for an occasional bold colour burst. She also uses acrylic paint and watercolour pencils.
In ‘The domination’, Neetha explores a tied-down childhood — the impressionability of a child’s mind and how societal errors can mould them badly. She shows a child trapped inside a web, tentacles shackling her under the menacing eyes of a spider. ‘The submission’ is Neetha’s take on the Simulation Theory.
What if animals start controlling human beings in the future? An absolute role reversal? Her art has also helped Neetha connect with many people. “People, mostly strangers, often reach out to me with their personal struggles. I become the ear that listens to them. That is the best thing I can do,” she says. Her art is catharsis for her too. Though it may seem dark and despondent, it is her way of understanding the world and herself.