[Tre sbirri, una carrozza (Te Deum) from Puccini’s Tosca]
Of course I’ve been in a self-imposed exile, and there is something very, I think, liberating
about that psychological isolation which I think I’ve been able to achieve in the studio.
Because it’s a bit of a bubble, and all we do there, me and my team, is – there’s
a crisis if an orchid doesn’t bloom at the right time.
I think it is, in my opinion, the most dedicated atelier, that can only be compared to the
times of the Renaissance.
When I decided that I was going to dedicate the rest of my life to painting, it was a
rebirth of sorts, and that was 20 years ago, and I’m still on this journey.
And frankly speaking I had, when I was growing up, absolutely no clue that I was ever going
to be an artist or a painter.
The whole creative process, I think, starts with, regardless of art – it’s that thing
that, do you have another painting in you?
And what is that painting?
Is it good enough?
And you only know when you finish.
A six foot by five foot painting would take one person four and a half years to complete
with one day off a week.
And that’s why no one here is full time.
Everyone has days off, because it’s the perfect recipe to bake anyone’s brain.
Because I do not want to see difference of hand in absolutely any work, whatsoever.
So to keep that seamlessness is not easy at all.
If you really look at the process, it’s not actually very much like 'painting' painting.
It really is tiny areas, and it’s very much like enamel work.
So everything is super tiny sections, and when they all come together, with the different
techniques, they somehow make sense and you can see the whole painting and the whole image
taking shape.
[paint mixing machine noise]
The nature of the practice is such that the paints are poured directly onto the surface,
and then manipulated whilst on the surface – rather than using a palette.
So the quills just allow you to move quite thick paint around on the surface, basically.
So you sort of jab it and swirl it around.
And we’ve got this machine, sort of a cocktail making machine, for colours.
And it’s got all the pigments in it.
We’re matching the colour from the original Cranach painting, so it’s all based on that
same colour spectrum, basically.
I remember the first Renaissance works that I saw in New Delhi, was at bookstores.
And when you know nothing about Western art, and you see these images and they’re absolutely
incredible, and when I saw the first Cranach at the National Gallery, which was Venus and
Cupid, and what struck me was that Venus is wearing the hat of the day, so it is a fashionable
lady of that particular moment in time, and you see that marriage of antiquity with so-called
current fashion, and I thought that was a fabulous paiting.
One of the most fabulous things ever for an artist, and I think for me, is that I never
imagined that my painting would ever be shown next to the original, and I think that really
means a lot to me.
I do hope that my interpretation does have the so-called formal qualities that we see in the
original Cranach, but at the same time I think this is – it’s more experimental
and it’s more fun, I think.
And it’ll be lovely to see the two of them together.
[opera music]
Let’s not forget that painting back then was a way that people could live in a different
reality.
And that’s what painting is supposed to be – they’re supposed to suck you into
a different reality, and a situation that you feel that, for that one little moment
you’re transported into some other world.
My generation was a large generation when Kashmir was not as troubled as it has been
over the last twenty years.
Overnight, Kashmir, from being an absolute paradise on earth – it turned into an absolute
living nightmare and hell, and it’s very sad to see that.
One of my most vivid memories was going to one of the shrines in the morning with my
mother, and it was one of, what one would call, separatists.
And he was shot, and there was warm blood along the steps of the shrine, and accidentally
I put my foot in it
and I will never forget that feeling – that smell.
The feeling of warm blood under your feet, and it’s very, very hard to see so many
young people die for nothing.
It’s very, very sad.
I don’t feel a need to leave this place because it’s a work in progress, always,
for absolutely everyone.
We all are trying to cope with day-to-day existence, and trying to make sure that the
day-to-day existence is somewhat palatable.
To have this incredible cornucopia of talent,
I love life that is surrounded with talent and beauty
and that’s what they are.
And I know, also, based on my experience how a peaceful state can turn into something very,
very drastic, and can turn into something very disturbed
so I don’t take stability for granted at all.
Things can flip around, and turn around very quickly.
Perhaps it was the only way I could try to suture my psychological wounds, is by bathing
the wounds in talent and beauty.
And I do hope that when people look at the paintings and they see that there is that
element of symphony, element of construction that is sophisticated – what it might translate
to beauty – I don’t know.