Website: https://ranipunnani.com
“Rani” means Queen in my language. From a young age, my immigrant parents have always known that I would never go into the stereotype career that a south Asian is supposed to go into. I’ve experienced A great deal of pain in my early life. Suffered from low self-esteem for as long as I can remember. I was always a quiet kid. Navigating the adult world as a young woman so desperately wanting to be beautiful, I chose to work in the sex industry, Trying to escape the confinements of an incredibly overbearing culture. I just wanted to be beautiful like the white girls that I would see growing up. I soon come to realize that I will never be perceived in the same way as a white woman. But it’s OK I wouldn’t change being south Asian for anything else. I grew up, feeling ashamed of my culture and myself. I think my art represents that shift, To seeing my culture through my own lens. My diaspore lens. A lot of people back home think what I’m doing is ruining the culture, Because to them, Indian culture is controlling women. But do they know how we were before colonization? Do they know about the temples with nude sculptures, performing sexual wax on each other? Asian people are incredibly sexual. South Asian Women, especially have been so suppressed by our own people, men and women. I am so grateful to have been raised in America, where I can find an outlet to truly express all forms of myself. You see I feel like a lot of men especially don’t deserve to see the reference pictures for these photos, Because they don’t consider it art. They do not take the time out of their day to appreciate the lighting the color scheme, the fashion, the emotion that I trying to convey. And I don’t expect anything more from them. I feel like drawing myself as a gorgeous goddess from these pictures that I have taken throughout the years, Is putting to use the photos instead of discarding them and locking them away forever. To be seen as a scary and beautiful thing.