Live Painting at VMF Plaza event in the Punjabi Market, September 2021
Acrylics on wood panel, 24”x36”
Title: Unveiled.
The Golden Land, (Vancouver Mural Festival, 2021)
Punjab – where the months of harvest envelope the land in a golden hue.
The mural quintessentially encapsulates a utopian moment in a Punjabi village household from that time of the year when the crops are ripe and ready to be harvested. However, it depicts more than just the joy of reaping the fruits of your labor. It’s about the taste of bliss found in the simplicity of life and how it evokes a universality.
It’s soaked in cultural nostalgia as well – a man performs Bhangra(folk Punjabi dance), a woman uses a traditional Madani (now rarely found) to churn butter & lassi, another woman carries fodder on her head and a couple of kids play stapu(Hopscotch). Golden crop fields are seen in the far distance. A farmer is standing in the fields. Another farmer rides an ox-cart and more clay houses, trees and livestock are seen in the distance while the sky is ablaze with the sunset. We sometimes forget everything that has appeared before our time and this mural is the artist’s attempt to close the distance in time between a bygone moment in life and the viewer looking at it.
I am sentimentally driven but also recognize the struggles of my ancestors. I understand that despite the artlessness and seeming innocence of the time, that lives were very hard and far from the paradisal existence that I depicted in the mural.
Numaish. ਨੁਮਾਇਸ਼ - ‘A Show’
A selfie turned into a pencil drawing, then finished with a coating of Chai used as paint.
Sublime love, ਇਸ਼ਕ ਹਕੀਕੀ ।
Pencil, Oil and acrylic on Rag paper.
The revival of a family portrait.
To bring to life through art, the immediacy of a family moment captured a long time ago- each face talking through the language of the eyes, the stillness in bodies & the silence permeating through the moment.
Acrylic, Oil paint, Charcoal on Canvas.
Revive, 2019.
Published in the zine ‘Recognition II - Trans & Queer writing on sexual harm”, put together by WAVAW Rape Crisis Centre in Vancouver.
The Consequence.
What are we leaving behind? - A direct question that should gnaw at you without having to frequently being asked. A reflection of the uncertain future on our planet, this mixed media artwork aims to evoke the uncertainty of our future.
Published in BreakTheDivide zine. (2020)
SERIES : In her element;
Portraits of three women of color, from three different countries, who have questioned the norm and have built themselves up - choosing the path less taken.
I grew up watching women around me constantly give up on their dreams, never embracing or loving themselves. I am in awe of women who are unapologetically true to their heritage, celebrate individuality and go after their dreams. While they flourish in life, they inspire millions across the globe and create space for minorities using their art & authentic expression.
Medium: Pencil, Charcoal, Leonardo.
Fijiana in her element.
Pallavi is a Fijian-Bay Area rapper & singer, songwriter.
Shaista Deen in her element.
UK based Trinidadian photographer & creative director.
Series-
Tragic reasons.
Paaro’s grit.
In the classic Bengali romance novel ‘Devdas’, Paro is Devdas’s forbidden childhood love. Years of separation lead to a wishful dream of childhood love blossoming into a lifelong journey but life has other plans for them. Devdas moves away from Paro as the relationship between their families’ decays, the time when she needed him the most. He writes a letter to her, asking her to forget him but he himself is surrounded with constant thoughts of her, no matter what he was doing. And much later, when he does reach out to her, it’s too late. She scorns him for not standing by her and they part forever with a heartbroken Paro entering into a chaste marriage with a wealthy, much older man – while a shattered Devdas walked towards anguish & alchoholism.
In this artwork, Aishwarya Rai is painted as Paro. (A still from the 2002 film Devdas, a direct adaptation of the novel.)
Her strength, sadness and grit lie unconcealed on her face, in her eyes.
Irrfan Khan, in a still from the movie - ‘The Lunchbox’.
in a still from the movie ‘The Lunchbox’
In the movie, ‘The Lunchbox’, after a middle-class housewife prepares a special lunchbox to be delivered to her neglectful husband at work, and it is mistakenly delivered to another office worker, a lonely man on the verge of retirement (played by Irrfan) – a series of lunchbox notes commences between them. The mere comfort of communicating with a stranger anonymously soon evolves into an unexpected relationship; the chit-chat notes evolving into confessions about loneliness, memories, regrets, fears and even small joys.
o The performance in the film is considered one of Irrfan’s best during a career span of 30 years. He passed away on April 29, 2020- aged 53.
Adornments & sentiments.
A golden moment. 2019
The woman of Libery. 2020
Oracular spectacular.
Ravjot Mehek Singh in her element.
Indian-American Film & TV Director.
I am the curse of man today,
Time’s wound cries out in me.
Sun and moon hid their light
And stars fell dead in thick night
When they forced my mother’s womb.
Strange but fruit ripened on the tree
Of independence — look and see!
When they forced my mother's womb.
Except from Amrita Pritam’s poem - THE SCAR OF A WOUND
Madhubala’s melancholy.
Madhubala, a Bollywood icon, lived a life just as tragic as ‘Anarkali’, a character she played in her last film, the classic - ‘Mughal-e-azam’.
After being diagnosed with a rare heart condition, Madhubala kept fighting for her life and doing justice to her art while sadness colored her life off the screen.
A woman of resolve and uncanny character, she spent the last of her days in loneliness and died at the untimely age of 36 but left behind a timeless remembrance full of art, beauty and strength.
Madhubala when asked about love had once said ,"No peace or happiness is possible in life without true love."
The weight of the world is love.
Under the burden of solitude,
under the burden of dissatisfaction -
the weight we carry is love.
Who can deny? In dreams, it touches the body.
In thoughts, constructs a miracle.
In imagination, anguishes
till born in human —
looks out of the heart, burning with purity—
for the burden of life is love.
——— Allen Ginsberg
Dreamscapes.
Longing
Zenith.
Arbitrary & Commissioned work.
3 sentiments.
Something hides in every night.
It’s not the things that we do, it’s the things that we don’t. 2020
The anchoress. (Jogan) 2020.
Quest.
Home away from home. 2021
OIL ON CANVAS
Chai?
