Pride

Title : Pride
Series : Exhale 

In his series Exhale, Aditya Raj wanted to depict queerness through the subtle ways that it shows up in his daily life. To try and paint what it feels like to be queer, to live those experiences and how one navigates being queer. 

It is a depiction of what it might feel like from the inside. Every struggle, every obstacle and every win, all encapsulated in these moments in these paintings. 

In Unzipped, it's that one moment where one finally let's go. All that you were holding on to, keeping it in, gone and put in the universe. Suddenly your universe expands and you no longer hide.

In Exhale, he pretty much sums up the series. It's about becoming one with the outside. To take that final step, become one with the universe. Let your colours shine, and show the world that your queerness is not a disability or abnormal, it's unique and it's your identity. 

Aditya Raj paints to not only archive his life and queerness but also to normalise it. To challenge societal expectations of how one must live and behave.