Women Empowerment

Cheryl Braganza is an Indian born artist and writer who was chosen as Montreal Woman of the Year in 2008. She moved to Montreal, Canada after studying in London. Along with being an artist she is also a poet and musician who has survived cancer. She works with organizations that focus on human rights, especially women. She started to reclaim her Indian culture and self after she had gotten a divorce.  

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Cheryl Braganza’s art changed overtime as she was shifting between different stages in her life. When she had first moved to Montreal people were not purchasing her art because she used bright and bold colors that naturally came to her from her background. When she felt she did not fit in, she started to tone down her colors. Over the years and after different things that had happened in her life she began to go back to using vibrant colors that are associated with her Indian culture. She describes her work as being contemporary figurative. 

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The artist’s work fits into this Women’s Empowerment gallery because Braganza painted about the events that affected the people around her, that was mainly women. She took situations where women’s fundamental freedoms were taken away and painted about them. She saw how women were attacked physically and verbally on the streets around her. Her art expresses takes these scenarios and projects how women are treated, this connects to our gallery because it proves the point of how women have been treated over time. In one of her paintings “WOMEN OF THE WORLD UNITE” she envisions the future with women who are all of different color to come together to create a positive change in the world. She viewed women as the future of how the world will become better. 

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Braganza uses acrylic paint to paint on canvas boards. In many of her art she also used mixed media to portray her work. Her paintings use bright and vibrant colors that come from her Indian culture. Her art is not straight lines and colored perfectly in them but instead it is colors that come together in asymmetrical shapes to make up her art.