Duality - SOLD

2006
10 x 12 in.
Acrylic on Canvas
Sold

Collector’s Notes

Composition:
The stark contrast of black and white creates a bold female visage, bisected into light and shadow. A red bindi and a single white teardrop punctuate the monochrome, drawing attention to the tension between strength and vulnerability.

Color & Symbolism:
The palette is intentionally minimal — black and white for duality, accented with a red bindi symbolizing tradition, identity, and inner power. The teardrop represents suppressed sorrow and unacknowledged resilience, hinting at the struggles women face in balancing external expectations with inner truth.

Medium & Technique:
Painted in flat planes of color, the work draws on modernist simplicity and symbolic minimalism. The artist’s focus on shape, form, and contrast amplifies the philosophical depth of the subject.

Style & Story:
Rooted in the concept of yin and yang, the piece explores the interplay of opposites — good and bad, strength and fragility, light and dark — and how they coexist within every human being. Beyond abstract philosophy, it connects deeply to women’s lived realities, showing how cultural forces can both define and confine them.

Emotional Connection:
The work resonates with themes of inner conflict, identity, and resilience. The dual tones speak to life’s constant push and pull, while the bindi and teardrop humanize the abstract — making the painting as much a feminist statement as a philosophical one.

Context & Significance:
One of the artist’s earliest works after a two-decade hiatus, Duality marks a personal and artistic rebirth. It embodies her return to creative expression, while also laying the foundation for her lifelong exploration of philosophy, spirituality, and the human condition through art.

Message from the Artist

After a long pause from painting, this was one of the first works I returned to, and it was born from questioning the labels we place on experience: good and bad, light and dark, strength and vulnerability. I realized that these categories are never absolute — instead, they shift and coexist, much like the cyclical balance expressed in the yin-yang philosophy.

The tear and the bindi were deliberate choices, suggesting the tension women often feel between self-worth and external expectations. At times, one side overwhelms the other, and balance is lost. Yet even within dominance, traces of the opposite remain — strength within sorrow, softness within power.

This work became a meditation on the interdependence of opposites. Rather than striving to eliminate darkness, I sought to show that meaning arises when both are acknowledged. To me, Duality is not a contradiction to resolve, but a rhythm to inhabit — an acceptance that our humanity is made richer by its multiplicity.