New Delhi, May 21 -- Pain is invisible; the sufferer has to make noise for it to be acknowledged, treated or accepted. Mumbai-based artist Koshy Brahmatmaj, 34, lives with chronic endometriosis, a painful condition that afflicts millions of women around the world. A recently-concluded exhibition at Anupa Mehta Contemporary Gallery, Mumbai, of her textile-based works, titled how do i make you believe, showed how the lack of quick fix solutions to chronic illness and pain can be, among other things, a starting point for artistic alchemy.

Brahmatmaj's chosen medium is embroidery-something that social media algorithms would term "grannycore" or "slow living", and what British embroidery artist Clare Hunter says in her book Threads of Life (2...