Below are two of my final projects for this part of the course. 

The first one is titled “My garden self-isolation”.  

I have used the following materials: A2 size aquarelle paper from Arches, black ink in carbon black from Liquitex, green ink in “vert fonce” and “vert printemps” from Sennelier, Japanese painting brushes, a ruler, black ink pens in 10mm from UniPin, a blue and yellow pigment from Japanese Tambi aquarelle set. Fiona banner’s wordscapes inspired me.  

Artist statement: After my Dad passed away, I developed a habit of spending some time every day in complete isolation in the garden, staring at the greenery and tiny ants. I miss him terribly, and like everyone else, who lost a parent, I feel so guilty that I was not kind enough or didn’t talk to him as often as I should have. I recall my childhood days with him, and the green leaves and ants are those who share my memories. 

Below is my second project for the final assignment.

Untitled.

I used the following materials: A2 size multi-medium paper from Fabriano, soft pastels from Sennelier, green ink in “Vert Fonce” from Sennelier, black ink pen 10 mm from UniPen; 

I tried a different theme for the work, which you can see among the sketches. Initially, I thought about incorporating lotus flowers, but they seemed too dominant, and I wanted to emphasize the words. Thus I changed the concept for the background and made it uncoloured, painting it orange. The orange is considered very auspicious in Hinduism since it signifies God. This monochrome approach allowed me to introduce the sacred symbol of Om in Sanscrit behind the words. When I was working on writing the words and doing preliminary sketches, I faced the problem that the words don’t look good if they are not really nicely written, if the letters are not even. I also had to think about how to distribute and allocate the words on the surfaces so that they would be visually harmonious. I checked this by taking photos of my writing, which revealed all flaws in my handwriting. It took a lot of effort to make the phrase look like good calligraphy. I painted the word “attachment” in bold black ink and the words “fear and anger” I did as tangled lines to symbolize that these emotions are toxic, entangling our consciousness.  

Artist Statement:  You don’t have to read many religious books, just hang this on the wall at your place and look at it every day. It will change your life for the better.