Exploration of the Creative Process - SOUMYA NETRABILE - Part II by Amelia Ah You

I was introduced to Soumya Netrabile’s work from a recorded conversation moderated by Julian Cox of AGO, about the show “Matthew Wong: Blue View” in the fall of 2020.

I love the sensual freedom in Soumya’s paintings. Botanical in nature, confident and yet fluid burshstrokes, inspired by deep observations in her daily walks in a park near her home in Chicago. I hope to see her work live one day soon.

Below is an excerpt from an interview where Soumya speaks about her process.

WHERE DO YOU GET YOUR INSPIRATION?

“I start with a color and try to keep my interest focused on how can I play with the paint. I like experimenting with mediums, brushes, thicknesses, fluidity. Most of the time the paint and the cooperation or resistance of the surface guides my hand and my decisions. This being said, the body, whole and in its parts and configurations, is a usual starting point. This makes sense to me because it is what I know best—my limbs, my appetites, my senses, how I’m able to move or bend. In the kind of meditation I practice, I work on connecting to the parts inside my body, so I’m very tuned to that interior landscape. The initial forms that emerge usually start changing as I work the paint. Maybe an arm will turn into a flower petal, and it feels right for a moment so I leave it be. The next moment that petal changes into a uterus or an elephant head and so forth. I try hard not to judge whatever flows in and out. Keeping myself and the work in a state of openness is important. In the midst of working through an image, you’re always confronted by moments where you must make decisions. Inspirations are tiny little creatures that are born at such junctures, asking for life or death. But if you’re not working in a state of openness, they’re more likely to stay hidden.”

There’s a poem by Gary Snyder that describes this feeling. I dwell on it often and the last line in particular:

It comes blundering over the
Boulders at night, it stays
frightened outside the
Range of my campfire
I go to meet it at the
Edge of the light.

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