I was fortunate to be surrounded by great visual artists, people who didn’t just paint- but people who had given their life to painting. People who breathed and created art as a lived experience. My tryst with this genre began as a model. An artist did a series of portraits of me. I would sit for hours in front of his canvas and he would steadily and slowly paint the most beautiful portraits I’ve ever seen. One of them even won an award and was even sent abroad for competitions in some of the most premium galleries of art.
So my journey with painting began on the other side of the blank canvas and gradually, as I had more discussions with artists, I began to explore the colourful magic that unfolded on the painter’s side of the canvas. I experimented with oil paints, and was naturally drawn to the flowing beauty of watercolour. I’ve explored the mediums of acrylic and charcoal as well. Being a live model was an exceptional experience- surrounded by half a dozen artists making very interesting drawings and paintings, perceiving something in front of them in amazingly varied and rich ways. At every stage of my exploration, I have been immensely lucky to have been surrounded by people who are experts at their chosen genres. Seeing their work closely and discussing their work has been insightful in a way that painting has become a therapeutic part of life. The entire process of expression from the moment you see something inspiring and beautiful around you to it’s manifestation on paper is very interesting to me. I enjoy painting abstractly. It is a very endearing thing to peek into the world and then recreate it through one’s own hands and heart onto a canvas. Painting, like most other art, is also about an inner journey that empowers breaking mental conditioning and going beyond to create something that truly encapsulates one’s essence.
Watch this space for these paintings. Paintings of me, some paintings by me. I also invite you to pick up a brush and see which picture demands to be painted, I can assure you there are some. The canvas is waiting!
