Natasha Sachdeva: Painting Over the ‘Ideal’ Body Type

Natasha Sachdeva, a Delhi-based artist, is asking the question: do women own their entire bodies? Or, dogged by paradigms of ideal beauty, are women compartmentalising bits and pieces, and treating what doesn’t fit a mould as other? Are we conditioned to box them off in bits and pieces labelled ‘to-be fixed’? Lack of representation of different body types in the media adds to the narrative that only one type is acceptable. 

 

 

 

 

With her new series, showing at the Art Heritage Gallery, 27-year-old Natasha explores these themes by focusing on women’s bodies of different sizes, shapes, and colours.  

 

Obsession with ‘perfect’ bodies

Natasha’s artwork holds a mirror to the shared insecurities of women about their appearance, relentlessly reinforced by societal gaze and psychological manipulations of the beauty industry.

Her painting, ‘The Bulges Are Not Mine’, showcases a woman pulling on the bulges near the stomach, delinking them from her body. Women reflexively dissociate parts of their bodies that don’t conform to normative ideals, treat them as ‘extra’.

 

 

“I realised that people are never satisfied with how women look. They expect you to look a certain way and anything beyond that is seen as problematic, which can have a huge psychological impact. So, through my work, I wanted to draw bodies that we don’t often see in the media,” says Natasha.

 

 

The series is inspired by her personal experience with dramatic weight gain and loss due to PCOD and the body image issues that often come with such hormonal imbalance.

 

Toxicity of body policing

 

People are never satisfied with how women look. They expect you to look a certain way and anything beyond that is seen as problematic, which can have a huge psychological impact.

 

Fair-skinned, spotless bodies are ubiquitous in advertisements, films, and social media. And, constant exposure to these creates unattainable beauty standards. If women don’t conform to them, then that’s considered as an excuse for unasked judgment masqueraded as ‘advice’. It’s usually these pearls of wisdom that lay the foundation of body image issues. 

A younger Natasha’s mum took her to a gynaecologist because of her irregular periods and weight gain. “The doctor told me, ‘Have you seen yourself? You have started looking like an aunty,’ the 27-years-old recalls. She adds, that they “never went back to her, but the statement stuck.”

 

Talking about how freely people comment on a woman’s appearance and point out what’s wrong with her body, Natasha recounts, “I have a very prominent mole on my face. Some family members think it’s okay to tell me how bad it looks and that I should remove it. Even strangers, for instance, a chemist once told me to get rid of it.”

 

Letting Bodies Exist Freely

The imposed beauty standards, perpetuated by the clothing, and the cosmetic industry capitalise on women being uncomfortable in their skin. But often in stolen moments, when the world is shut out, women let their bodies free, which Natasha portrays in her painting, ‘The Night Belongs to Us.’ 

 

In the series, Natasha paints a woman taking off her bra, possibly after a long day of painstakingly tucking her bodies into presentable parameters. You can almost hear the sigh of relief waiting to escape.

 

“The body is not entirely naked, the private parts are still covered because I think that as a woman, you don’t have the freedom with your own skin. We consciously or subconsciously always cover-up, even while sleeping.” 

 

Natasha adds, “We are brought up that way. We are told to dress ‘appropriately’ because brothers or fathers are around, but the same doesn’t apply to the men. So, in my paintings, I talk about both this conditioning and the liberation that women feel when they let their bodies be.”

This emphasis on freedom is also reflected in Natasha’s choice of medium: watercolours on paper. The paint flows freely on paper, significantly when diluted with water, as she likes to do. “it helps in creating realistic skin tones, which can differ across the body.” The medium also serves as symbolic for the art’s primary purpose: confronting the ambiguity around female bodies. 

“There is a sense of uncertainty. When painting marks, watercolour is not a rigid medium so the shape can be abstract much like what we see on our bodies,” says Natasha. 

Challenge conditioning through representation

The beauty myth accentuates that women’s bodies must be smooth and easy to look at, much like an object of desire.

In one of Natasha’s paintings, a woman lifts her nose up to see her nostrils, and another pushes her cheeks in.

 

 

These moments are intimate precisely because such actions in public are not dainty, unladylike if you please. Checking for nose hair and boogers in public, and the world will cringe. 

Most of her paintings depict women with uneven skin tones, bulges, marks, all that’s dismissed as unappealing. But Natasha paints not to make others comfortable, but to make women feel seen and celebrated.

 

“When I first started painting, I often questioned why I was painting these bodies? No one is going to put up a painting of a woman’s body with bulges and marks in their living room.

 

Then, at a recent exhibition, Natasha sold her paintings.  “People commented that they didn’t know bodies like these could also be painted. Because whenever you see nude paintings, it’s usually a perfect figure. Very attractive and appealing.” 

 

 

To Natasha’s surprise, people across the gender spectrum related to her work.

 

“After seeing my ‘These Bulges Are Not Mine’, a man told me that he overanalyses his body, tugging at the bulges, every day in front of the mirror.” 

 

In one of her paintings, an older woman is wearing fancy lingerie with polka dots. Such an image is unthinkable for a society where clothes are deeply linked to a culture that conveniently assumes the role of a protector.

“A lot of older women restrict themselves to a certain kind of clothing because of the cliche, ‘What will people think?” and ‘These are for younger girls’. So, I did this painting to highlight that people should be free to wear what they want to, without the constraints of age, body shape, or colour.

 

Problematic perceptions

Inspired by everyday observations, Natasha’s work represents women’s bodies that are hidden from the mainstream narrative. But as an artist who paints nude bodies, the path hasn’t been easy. 

There is the judgment on social media and the generalised idea that someone painting nudes is ‘bold’. “Not everyone understands my work. Because I’m a girl, people judge me for painting nudes or posting my picture taken at a weird angle on Instagram. I get messages from strangers who think I’m very approachable, which I’m not.”

It’s challenging to find work opportunities because of the kind of paintings she does, Natasha reveals. 

“At one art camp, the instructor said to keep my work simple. What they meant was to not create the kind of paintings I do. How can I change what I do? I wasn’t selected because of it. Now I know it’s going to be tougher for me.”

In a world where women still have to bear the brunt of not adhering to the “ideal” body type, Natasha’s artwork is a breath of fresh air, replacing shame with representation.