Colours of Concern

Tucked in a corner of Delhi’s Vadehra art gallery, artist Praneet Soi stands before his painting, September. He pauses for a minute and helps the onlookers absorb a glimpse of his psyche and issues that affect him, as he describes his artwork. The memory of the 9/11 attacks, the incident that not only changed the New York skyline forever, but also left a deep imprint on his artistic oeuvre 15 years ago, is one such incident. The blue and black strips running parallelly on the canvas, turned into a motif, depict the architecture of the iconic twin towers. A screaming yellow face drenched in shock beside it. “During the incident, I was on my way to study at University of California in San Diego. The incident changed the way people like me — students and migrants — thought of our situation where we were constantly facing visa and travel issues,” he says, as he introduces his latest exhibition “For and Against the Narrative”. In the same frame, he has painted images from a newspaper revealing the current unrest in Turkey, the flowers and car visible from his studio in Amsterdam and his wife’s eyes. “These are different aspects put together on a canvas to show viewers what I am really interested in. It is a way of pulling in from my everyday experience,” says Soi, 45, who divides his time between Amsterdam and Kolkata.

11 October 2016