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Brushstrokes: Aching Palates

An illustration of a feminine-presenting person wearing ornate headgear, jewellery and drapped in a pink veil. The person is positioned against a green background. A four-directional peacock design acts as a frame around the person. Inside the frame are the symbols for male, female and intersex. Along the four corners, the following words are written in red in Hijra Farsi: initiation, singing, clapping and death.
By Anoushka Budhia Brushstrokes Food and Sexuality Visual Corner July 17, 2023

This art collection bears the evocative title “Aching Palates”. Within its realm, each artwork embodies an emblematic act that accompanies the intricate ritual of food: hunger, gathering, fire, serving, devouring and, ultimately, nourishing. Deliberately crafted, these pieces seek to provoke introspection, inviting us to reconsider how every step, from the primal pangs of hunger to the profound sustenance of nourishment, resonates with our inner desires – our hunger for passion no less insatiable than our hunger for sustenance.

All paintings are digital mixed media.

An illustration of a feminine-presenting person wearing ornate headgear, jewellery and drapped in a pink veil. The person is positioned against a green background. A four-directional peacock design acts as a frame around the person. Inside the frame are the symbols for male, female and intersex. Along the four corners, the following words are written in red in Hijra Farsi: initiation, singing, clapping and death.
Hunger
A black and white illustration of a person with long black wavy hair standing against a background of ripples. There are beetle-like ornaments attached along the length of the hair.
Gather
Fire
Serving
Devour
Nourish
Anoushka Budhia / About Author
The artist is Anoushka Budhia, a student at Ashoka University. Through her art, she aims to draw the explicit, the disturbing, the unacceptable. As a queer artist, she believes that depicting the “uncomfortable” as bold and loud can help increase society’s tolerance and acceptance towards their taboos. She doesn’t seek to make her art , be it visual or written , palatable for the audience. Rather, she believes anyone as a part of the human experience, should be able to confront their deepest fears and biases.
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