Farzana Ahmad

Farzana Ahmad is an emerging Sydney-based artist expressing herself through various visual arts disciplines including printmaking, oils, acrylics, watercolour, ceramics, and sculpture. She is mostly self-taught and is currently pursuing a Bachelor of Visual Arts and Design. Ahmad’s work is often inspired by the arresting beauty of nature, but she is also sensitive to the social, political, cultural and environmental issues affecting the world. As an artist, Ahmad feels compelled to comment on and document these issues, and it is progressively becoming more evident in her practice.

#22 | Break Free,  2019, printmaking using silk screen, linocut and stencil, 58 x 152 cm.

Break Free is my interpretative illustration of Anais Nin’s poem ‘Risk’. It is intended to evoke hope and motivate the viewer to take action to bring about positive changes in their life.

It was inspired by the alarming statistics of domestic violence in Australia where 1 in 4 women report having experienced DV. On average one Australian woman is murdered every week as a result of it and yet, it’s appalling that in a first world country like Australia, many women still don’t feel supported enough to leave an abusive relationship.

Through Break Free I’ve tried to tell the story of a woman experiencing DV. She is at a point where she realises she must take action to change her situation or risk living in fear and humiliation that will end up killing her. She finally finds the courage to leave her abuser and breaks the painful barbed wire (symbolising her abusive relationship) to reach out for happiness and find self-worth.

I chose a ballerina as the subject because every woman was once a little girl dreaming of growing up to be a ballerina - to live the life of a princess; loved, respected and not abused.