Bindi

A self portrait to display the confusion of being an Indian girl born in America. Mixed Media paper with colored pencil and alcohol markers, along with physical bindis, a cultural symbol for Indian women.

I wanted to show how I implement culutal things into my life, but how confusing it can be to have a culutal identity while also being a "whitewashed" person. With all the bindis in the background, I show the variety in what they are, but the overwhelming amout there are as well. It's hard to choose just the right one when there are so many of them, and I wanted to show that through the bindis. I also intentionally left the skin scratchy, adding onto that layer of confusion. I wanted to leave the audience mesmerized by all the different types of bindis but the center focus is drawn to myself in the middle, having to choose one of them and feeling overwhelmed by it all.