On March 8,2018 Google Doodle will celebrate this year’s International Women’s Day with an anthology of visual narratives brought to us by 12 artists from different countries. The artists are bringing forth unheard stories of womanhood and women in their lives.
Kaveri Gopalakrishnan is an independent comics maker and illustrator from Bengaluru who is one of the artists whose work is being featured in the Women’s Day 2018 Google Doodle.
Her narrative being featured is a comic about a young girl who reads books on her rooftop, and with each page turn, she becomes “feathery” and eventually takes flight.Kaveri told Firstpost that the rooftop was her hideout where she would spend her time(with a summer drink to sip on) and a big pile of books in tow. She’s described her work as “shots from an animated film that are multi-sensorial” and has said that when she is drawing, she likes to feel the temperature, touch and bring back physical memories, which can at times, come through on paper.
First PostHere are 5 other things to know about Kaveri Gopalakrishnan.
1. She’s been drawing since she was 5-years-old.
When asked about her earliest memory of her drawing and doodling she says, “My earliest memories of drawing was during playtime with my friends, about 5 years old maybe? I’d insist that we all sit down for ‘drawing time,’ and we’d fill up so many sketchbooks with all kinds of made-up animal/human characters and dramatic conversations that they would all have together. I still have these books and these friends, and it’s one of my favorite memories from childhood.”
2. Her Google Doodle was drafted over a year ago.
When Gopalakrishnan was asked about how she drafted and came up with the concept of her doodle she said, “I’ve been wanting to make more stories based on things I felt as a child, and perhaps carry with me today. When the Google team sent in the brief for “Growth,” I had an immediate picture of a small creature growing into a large, strong and mysterious being after feeding off books. My earlier drawings have literal books being chomped on while the characters feathers sprouted in excitement!”
“I’ve been drawing this memory over and over again over the past year, because the roof was my favourite place to hide away as a child, in the hot Madras summer, when I was really shy and constantly scared of the world and surrounded myself with all my books and cold Tang and just wanted summer to never end. Reading makes me feel comfortable with myself and my emotions and excited about discovering new worlds and people in my own nest.
3. Womanhood is not a central part of her art.
“I have never seen womanhood as central to my art,” Gopalakrishnan says. “I feel divorced from my gender on some days (and conflicted that it’s a privilege to say so!) Honestly, I feel very strongly about public spaces being safe for women, and that comes from my own experience which is personal. As I said earlier, I just want to be a good storyteller while staying personal and relatable in my approach, and get better at learning how to do so, to anyone who comes across content that I create.”
4. She wants good art to be seen as good art.
When asked if there was anything about women artists that she’d want people to view differently, Gopalakrishnan said she’d rather take sexism out of the art and look at it for what it is. “I just want good art to be seen as good art, and comics to be written well, and gender to be a subtext and not the sole context. This is the ideal that we should and can push for.”
5. Her most significant influences are drawn from writers and authors.
When asked some of the literary works that influenced her the most Gopalakrishnan gave an extensive list saying, “There are so many! Books that have taken me to other worlds or felt multi-sensorial, probably. I think off the top of my head, and in random order: The Magic Faraway Tree by Enid Blyton, a lot of the translated Katha Inner Courtyard stories, select poems by Ted Hughes/WH Auden, the graphic novel version of The Fountain, Lord of the Rings and just a few years ago it was the Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula LeGuin.”
She continued, “I usually have about 2-3 books on hand to alternate between. I’m currently reading mostly POC fiction and autobiographical content: A bit afraid of falling into the “danger of a single story” as Chinua Achebe says.”
