The Artist Who Refuses to Look Away: Can Art Change the World?

There is a phrase Portia Roy uses to describe herself: "a stray dog on the streets of India." It is not self-pity. It is a way of saying she has made a choice, to stay close to the people who are overlooked, who move through cities and systems without anyone stopping to ask about them.

Her work grows from that closeness. Not from research or planning, but from paying attention. From images that find her in everyday life and refuse to leave until she has done something with them. "The role of an artist is to reflect the times they live in," she says. And the times, she believes, are asking us to look more carefully at the people we keep walking past.

Can Art Change the World Through Discomfort?

Art that looks at uncomfortable truths will unsettle people. And when it unsettles, it attracts criticism. Roy is clear-eyed about this.

"You can't be everyone's cup of tea," she says, with a calm that comes from having thought this through.

Some collectors admire her work and say nothing, as though something in the image touched a nerve they would rather leave alone. Others critique her openly. Roy welcomes that, as long as it comes from genuine engagement. "If someone has really seen my work and reflected on it, I'm happy to hear what they think," she says. That kind of response helps her grow and pushes her to look more carefully at her own choices.

What she has no interest in is the other kind. Comments that are simply hostile, or from people who have not really looked at all. Those she brushes off without much thought.

For Roy, the measure of a work is whether it opens a real conversation. Agreement is not required. But attention is.

The Artist Who Stopped Pretending Art Can Change the World

When the conversation turns to the harder question of whether art can actually help those it depicts, the people living invisible lives, Roy gives an answer that is striking in its honesty.

"No," she says, without pausing. "I don't think so."

She speaks about what has been documented in Gaza, about the ongoing crises her work has tried to draw attention to for nearly a decade. The crises have not ended. In many cases, they have deepened. "I don't think anything that any of us do will create any difference," she says quietly.

She reaches for the philosopher Slavoj Žižek to describe her outlook. "If there is a light that you can see through the tunnel, that is probably another train that is coming your way to crush you."

"I really believe in that," she adds. "There is no hope in my world."

It would be easy to hear this as defeat. But Roy's pessimism is not passive. It is the condition under which she still works. She still insists that the lives of those on the margins deserve to be seen. She has said that if a piece of work does not make her uncomfortable at first, she could not possibly create it. That discomfort is not a sign that something has gone wrong. It is the whole point.

No Hope. No Illusions. Just the Work.

In Not an Extra, this honesty runs through every single work. There is no false reassurance here. No comfortable resolution. No suggestion that looking at these images will make the world a better place.

Just an artist who looks at the world as it is. Who carves what she sees into wood and cardboard. And who refuses, every single time, to look away.

To experience the exhibition and register for upcoming events, visit us at https://www.artlune.com/projects/not-an-extra