Sketch­ing her mind on pa­per since the age of four, Mehar Dhillon is pos­sessed by the drive to con­struct in­fi­nite uni­verses within the lim­ited con­fines of a blank page or can­vas. This drive stems from the need to un­der­stand and con­nect. She pays care­ful at­ten­tion to how peo­ple in­ter­act with them­selves and their sur­round­ings. Through her works, she en­gages to de­ci­pher the uni­ver­sal­ity con­tained within our unique ex­pe­ri­ences, and in try­ing to un­der­stand oth­ers, un­der­stand one­self. The World Sikh News pre­sents one of her pri­mary paint­ings which re­ceived ac­co­lades at a re­cently or­gan­ised ex­hi­bi­tion of the paint­ings by the young artist.

:It was rain­ing. The much-awaited mon­soon had fi­nally ar­rived in Pun­jab, drench­ing the parched earth with wa­ter. I lay on the liv­ing room couch read­ing Maya An­gelou’s poem, ‘I know why the caged bird sings’. Some­times rain lashed at the glass panes an­grily and some­times fell melo­di­ously on the roof. An­gelou, a vic­tim of child abuse, had poured forth the pain and anger in the poem. These were the lines that in­spired the char­coal art piece which is the main photo of this piece:

But a bird that stalks
down his nar­row cage
can sel­dom see through|
his bars of rage
his wings are clipped and
his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing.
-Maya An­gelou

Trau­matic events re­main with us for a life­time, the resid­ual ef­fect is felt even by the gen­er­a­tions that fol­low. In­jus­tice breeds a very spe­cific kind of anger, one of re­sent­ment, be­trayal, and in­com­pre­hen­si­ble hurt. The vic­tims are help­less to this anger that slowly cor­rodes their be­ing. They re­main trapped be­hind the ‘ bars of rage’, strug­gling to break free. 

The in­tense anger, if not given a mean­ing­ful out­let, man­i­fests in an al­tered emo­tional re­sponse. It is very im­por­tant to deal with rage to live a mean­ing­ful and peace­ful life. If left un­at­tended, the trauma con­tin­ues to haunt gen­er­a­tions.

The char­coal piece- Bars of Rage, aims to ex­press the rage felt af­ter an act of vi­o­lence. 

For me, art has to be uni­ver­sal, re­lat­able, and cathar­tic. It is not lim­ited to an in­di­vid­ual, it is the voice of hu­man­ity. Art to me is hu­man, a nar­ra­tive, and a deep dive into the hu­man con­di­tion.

I se­lected the char­coal medium to show the depth of the dark­ness that a per­son is thrown into. Some­times, play­ing with two ex­tremely op­po­site colours can trans­form a piece of art. They can make it more in­tense and force­ful.

Art for me is a pow­er­ful tool that can usher so­cial and cul­tural change. It can grad­u­ally shift the way the world views and ad­dresses is­sues es­pe­cially those con­cern­ing women. Through this piece, I tried to draw peo­ple’s at­ten­tion and sen­si­tize them re­gard­ing the af­ter­math of do­mes­tic vi­o­lence and make them aware of the pain and rage the vic­tim silently suf­fers. 

When it was put up for an ex­hi­bi­tion, it trig­gered a dis­cus­sion among the au­di­ence. The men and women, young and old shared their sto­ries or the tales of the trauma they had heard. 

For some of the mem­bers of the Sikh com­mu­nity-the com­mu­nity, I be­long to-it brought to sur­face the scars of the ‘84 Sikh geno­cide. That day I felt that trauma does not al­ways af­fect fam­i­lies, it can af­fect com­mu­ni­ties too.

For some of the mem­bers of the Sikh com­mu­nity-the com­mu­nity, I be­long to-it brought to sur­face the scars of the ‘84 Sikh geno­cide. That day I felt that trauma does not al­ways af­fect fam­i­lies, it can af­fect com­mu­ni­ties too.

For me, art has to be uni­ver­sal, re­lat­able, and cathar­tic. It is not lim­ited to an in­di­vid­ual, it is the voice of hu­man­ity. Art to me is hu­man, a nar­ra­tive, and a deep dive into the hu­man con­di­tion.