Heroine

Inspired by traditional Indian painting and calligraphy, Oakland- based artist Rupy C. Tut creates meticulously detailed compositions. Rooted in her own experience, her work reflects the resilience of womanhood and diasporic experience. Using natural pigments on handmade hemp paper, she creates visual narratives investigating the power of kinship and care for survival. Tut’s works use the past as an anchor to imagine alternative social and political landscapes for the future.

Her work Heroine reconsiders the well-known Punjabi folk tale about a forbidden love affair between Sohni and Mahinwal. Sohni used a pot for swimming across the river to meet her lover Mahinwal each night. When her disapproving family learned about this affair, they placed unbaked clay in the place of the pot, causing her to drown. Tut’s futuristic Sohni, on the other hand, is confident in her posture and seems to be equipped with tools to make the crossing.