Pune: Hasti Rajabi paints with the raw intensity of a woman who has wrestled with life’s profound challenges and lived to tell her tale through art.Her canvases are vibrant tapestries woven with battle scars, heartfelt love letters, and intricate survival maps. The Iranian-born artist, who has called Pune home for the past 13 years, is sharing her deeply personal journey in her inaugural solo exhibition, “Becoming”, currently on display at Vesavar Art Gallery in Camp till Nov 11. Each piece powerfully conveys the weight of reinvention, meticulously tracing her transformation from a life dictated by others in Iran to the independent path she forged in India. Rajabi’s early life was marked by adversity; she became a child bride at 14 and a mother at 19. The loss of her father left her devoid of choice in her hometown, Tehran. “Everything was forced upon me, then everything was snatched away. I had no support; I just knew I had to get away, so I came to Pune where a friend of mine was staying,” Rajabi recounted. “I didn’t know the language, didn’t even know how to speak English properly. The culture was unfamiliar.” She enrolled in English classes at Symbiosis College and immersed herself in local life, learning Hindi and Marathi. While she had enjoyed painting in school, early responsibilities had overshadowed her artistic pursuits. “When I came to Pune, I picked up the brush again; I started to paint to tell my story,” she said. She continued to paint through heartbreak and uncertainty, a personal ritual that transformed into a public voice during the Covid-19 lockdown. “During 2020, I began painting more deeply, using my work as reflection and release,” Rajabi said. “I wanted women to see that it is okay to break and rebuild. Healing is a beautiful process, and every step of change makes us stronger.” This spirit of resistance permeates her exhibition. One compelling piece features a golden stroke across the eyes of Michelangelo’s David. “David is a symbol of beauty, but I wanted to show that beauty is not what you see with your eyes; it is inner awareness,” she said. Another painting depicts a woman calmly smoking a cigarette against a stark grey cityscape, a defiant self-portrait. “The bit of bright yellow among all that grey signifies hope,” Rajabi noted. Her favourite piece, “Anatomy of Becoming”, portrays a woman with crossed arms, horns rising from her head like a crown. “It is about the scars I carry, and how I found strength to carry me through all the hardships life threw my way. I wear my horns like a crown,” she said with pride. Rajabi’s philosophy has extended to her vibrant colour palette. “Orange is positive energy, blue is calmness,” she explained, revealing influences from both her Persian roots and Japanese sensibilities. Today, Rajabi’s life is vastly different from the one she fled. She resides in Pune with her husband and son, enveloped by the calm stability she once yearned for. “I was supposed to go to the US, but because of love, I stayed here. Love not only for the man I met in English classes, who proposed to me and became my husband, but also for the city that embraced me with open arms. Pune let me live and learn, paint and grow,” she said. Her art serves as a powerful message to women globally who are often encouraged to diminish themselves, stay put, and endure. Through her work, Janabi reminds them that they can always embark on a new beginning, one brushstroke at a time.
