I am a self-taught Brooklyn-based artist. I work with my fingertips and nails to dab paint onto the canvas. I feel that human beings have always communicated through hand gestures. We use hands to emote, write, play, and in the current day of touch screens to explore. I too use my fingernails to scratch at the surface of what appears to be to explore what lies beneath.
During the first 25 years of my life in New Delhi, I lived a sheltered existence. Even then I managed to delve into politics, environmental issues, religion, poetry and love through my paintings. I also exhibited my works in various solo and group exhibitions at the Teinshin Okakura Gallery at the Japan Foundation (Delhi), The Indian Habitat Center (Delhi) and the Auroville Ashram (Pondicherry) in India.
As you scroll below you will see reflections of my life as an immigrant in United States America, where I have now lived and worked as a writer for 10 years. In most of the paintings, still worked upon with my finger—you will see vignettes of faces that I find fascinating on the streets of New York, portraits of my dog Mowgli, paintings of the female form that I find beautiful in any shape or size, and glimpses of nature that usher me into what feels like meditative moments.
Titles, Sizes & Style
Hasyam: The Last Laugh
Acrylic on Paper
14 in x 21 in
A personal painting about love, hate, jealousy, pain and pity. I try hard to laugh at this faceless woman, but perhaps she is secretly laughing at me?
Raudram: Only Fury
Mixed Media on Paper
15 in x 21.5 in
Inspired by Edvard Munch's "The Scream", I dig my nails deep to scratch the surface, to dab paint in pointed screeching streaks. But, the mouth is too small and almost restricts the anger welled up inside. When I made this painting, something about it haunted me for days. So, I turned it to face the wall. The paint took longer to dry.
Bhibhitsam: Look Away
Acrylic on Paper
11 in x 16 in
If you can't look straight into the eyes of an individual you are hiding something. And vice versa. If someone steals his or her gaze, run away from that person. It's just not safe. Then there was something about this person, his deception, so art like, so perfect, that it looked like a mask, that he crafted even without his knowing.
Time
Mixed Media on Paper
21 in x 28 in
We are just like sedimentary rocks. The layers of time shape every inch of our being.
The Village
Mixed Media on Paper
21 in x 28 in
My mother would force my brother and I to visit her village in the Himalayas. It was beautiful, but you had to go take a dump in the fields, there was no electricity and the water gave me a terrible allergy.
My mother's mother lived there. She was so old, her memory fooled her into thinking that she was couple of years old. She didn't know she had a daughter, her teeth had all decayed and she had to be force fed to keep her going. This painting is the memory of my mother's village in the manner that a child would paint. The village is now a place of solitude and much peace for me. And I often think of my grandma twisted and frail like a mountain stream taking me to to that idyllic land.
Adbhutam: I wonder
Acrylic on Paper
21 in x 28 in
Have you ever stared at the sky for so long, that for a moment you forgot that you were lying on the grass, that for a moment you believed that you could fly?
Vatsalyam: Mother's Love
Acrylic on Paper
11 in x 16 in
To give birth to a child is the inability to let go of someone you love with so much pain. A mother gives birth to a child the way I give paint. But she keeps applying color to the canvas because she feels she must do more, to give this child what she could never have.
Dirt
Oil on Paper
34.5 cm x 27 cm
This painting is based on a poem by a Japanese poet by the name of Ishikawa Takuboku:
These days they say
That the poor unlucky widow
Incinerates her love, illegally with dirt
One
Acrylic on Paper
11 in x 19 in
I have always imagined love to be a perfect combination of colors on a palette.
Sringaram: I am beauty
Acrylic on Paper
13.5 in x 20 in
Has someone loved you so with such adoration that when you look into his eyes you find yourself perfect, always...
Ardhanareshwar
Acrylic and Ink on Paper
9 in x 19 in
From hurt, to pain, to anger, to a realization that happiness and cosmos is built on balance.
Kali
Acrylic and Ink on Paper
9 in x 19 in
She drinks humiliation and pain
She dances a dance of strength
To be a woman, is to know a woman
Shiva
Acrylic and Ink on Paper
9 in x 19 in
The fury of destruction
The strokes of Tandava
The art of creation
Anna
Acrylic and Ink on Paper
9 in x 19 in
The choice is between frustration and indifference. Analysts can debate the right way. For India, after a long time, it is the beginning of something.
Nippon
Acrylic and Ink on Paper
9 x 19 in
Japan bleeds yet again. What did we learn from Hiroshima? We have new bombs now. What did we learn when land, sea and earth ate her whole? We have more nuclear power now. Nature is cherry blossom. She teaches us how to really build a nation.
Arab Spring
Acrylic and Ink on Paper
9 x 19 in
Man eats man eats man eats man sells Democracy eats man eats man eats man.
Exhibitions
1997
Made illustrations for children’s storybook “Japanese Folktales”, written by Unita Sachidanand
2003-2006
Was an illustrator and later the Art Editor for my college newsletter "Oracle" and college magazine "Logos"
2005-2006
Was the Art Editor for the first undergraduate literary journal "Literophile" published by the University of Delhi
2007
Made illustrations for “Fundamentals of Human Geography”, an NCERT (National Council for Education and Research) textbook for Standard XII school students.
2008 Exhibition
Showcased paintings at a group show titled “Tanka on Canvas" at the Teinshin Okakura Gallery at the Japan Foundation in New Delhi, India. The works were inspired by Japanese poet Ishikawa Takuboku’s lyrics.
2009 Exhibition
Showcased paintings at a group show titled "Poetry on Canvas" at the Teinshin Okakura Gallery at the Japan Foundation in New Delhi, India. The works were inspired by the lyrics of Japanese poets Shiraishi Kazuko and Ono No Komachi.
2009 Exhibition
"Tanka on Canvas" showcased again at the Auroville Ashram in Pondicherry, India.
2010 Exhibition
A solo exhibition titled "Ono No Komachi on canvas" at the Teinshin Okakura Gallery at the Japan Foundation in New Delhi, India. These works were inspired by the love poetry of Ono No Komachi.
2010 Exhibition
“Faces and Mirrors: A fusion of photography and paintings”. By Varuni Sinha and Suraj Ajithakumar at the Indian Habitat Center, New Delhi, India.
2012 Exhibition
Exhibition of paintings inspired by the universal theme of love at Kadamb Art, Aquamarine Hotel, Chandigarh, India. The art show was curated by Neenu Vij.