Ashwini’s work begins with a drawing-based graphic medium. Her skills span all the graphic arts including relief printing, etching, lithography, serigraphy, calligraphy, engraving, and photo-etching. She usually creates 5 or 6 editions of a work. Her imagery of basic lines, strokes, and dots develops into figurative textures which in turn becomes her language. Her newest work utilizes used poly bags as a substitute for paper. Upon the poly bags she takes impressions of her graphic images. The combination represents both the impact of an industrial product in daily Indian life, and also a move toward awareness and a desire for sustainability.
Ashwini’s art is intimately linked with her perception of self; the recurrent momentary impulses of inner inquisitiveness, of one’s own life in relation to the people around us and the fleeting transformations of both. Her female figures embody her perception of what it means to be an Indian woman. The dark colors portray the weight of oppression and her floating figures reveal a fervent desire to break free from domination. Ashwini tries to give immense lightness to her forms as an expression of freedom, both artistically and culturally. As each color represents the depth of individual shades, so too does her imagery represent all the complexities inherent in the life of a woman; subtle and mysterious, sensitive and spiritual. It is here in her work where the pulse of life unconsciously blends with her humanist and religious ideals.
