Artist in Residence – Cherry Creek Magazine

When were you first introduced to painting and what captured your love for it? Creating art has been a passion since my earliest childhood memories. I was always drawing and using whatever paints I could find. Art class was my favorite, and I’d look forward to it with anticipation. My formal art education started in 1998, at the Art Students League of Denver, where professional artists teach students. My love for art has always been inspired by the desire to make something beautiful. I am inspired by the search for beauty in everyday scenes.

Talk about growing up in India and how that experience shaped you as a person and as an artist. Spending my formative years in Rajasthan, India, the people there wear very vibrant, vividly pigmented clothes. These colors typically denote the village or area they are from. Almost intrinsically these have affected my desire to make beautifully colorful paintings. Movies, both Bollywood and Hollywood (westerns in particular) and the advertisements in Time Magazine of the Marlboro Man and Virginia Slims women fascinated me when I was a young boy. I would sketch and paint these at every opportunity – every time a new magazine arrived – as I was fascinated by the people, especially the cowboys. There is a lot of constant bustle in India, and that has shaped me a person. I am always wanting to do something – athletically, or socially, or now in the studio painting. I feel like I am driven with constant motion and am comfortable with that having grown up in India.

How would you describe your style and what types of subject matter do you gravitate to with your paintings and why? My painting approach is fairly real when you look primarily. However, the design and color ideas are very abstract. I tend to think of my painting as two shapes (dark and light) interacting (or resonating) with one another. I love textures and complex value relationships, but with a context, which is the design of the painting. In terms of subject matter, my art straddles two worlds.  The first being the beautiful western landscape, people, and animals here in Colorado and the Southwest. The second and foundational is from the vibrancy and beautiful chaos my east Indian upbringing. I feel constantly drawn to both and literally represent this shifting a few paintings at a time, along with some still life work and figure drawing.  I have never been the sort of artist to paint only one subject or genre—I see beauty in so many places.I really enjoy plein air work too, so typically half my suitcase is filled with my painting gear when traveling or in a backpack going to paint the Colorado mountains and streams. It is a thrill to paint in nature and the learning and inspiration is unsurpassed.

What’s something about the art industry that most people don’t know? Paintings are surprisingly ‘technical’ to make. Each one presents a unique challenge that could be solved many ways. There is a lot of ‘emotion’ and ‘talent’ or ‘natural ability’ too, however one’s drive and hard work count for way more. Most artists have a set schedule and paint every day and spend a significant time crafting the composition of a painting with shape and line and value before the actual painting – the fun part – can begin. With regards to the art industry, a lot of the art industry works very informally and without written contracts.

You work with Saks Galleries in Cherry Creek. Talk about that partnership and how that came about. Saks Galleries is an amazing space for an artist. They are the best gallery in town. Located here in Cherry Creek, it is truly the most desired shopping location in Denver. Mikkel, Catherine and now Bekka Saks have been so supportive of me as an artist, for which I am so grateful. It is indeed a partnership as it takes the both of us to create a sale. I have been at Saks for over 15 years now and I see this relationship getting stronger as we grow together. The relationship started very organically with me approaching them and slowly starting to show paintings starting with group show, and I am planning on a one-person show at Saks in the next year-and-a-half.

From your travels, which place has shaped you most and what work came from it? One of my most impactful trips (and personal growth as an artist) came from visiting the Grand Canyon several years ago. Hiking down the canyon with my wife and daughter and seeing this immense landscape around you, I felt like I could see forever and was surrounded by these behemoth mountains. It was a true moment of awe and beauty. The paintings came as a result, with my daughter in the canyon, and have been very inspiring to me and successful visually.

Do you have a particularly unforgettable moment as an artist? There are two paintings that are related, one in the Children’s Hospital and the other at Saint Joseph’s Hospital. They depict my daughter and a friend jumping into a pool in the summer playing. These paintings have resonated with patients and their loved ones that have seen them during their stay at the hospitals and given joy at a difficult time in their lives. To me this is really profound and motivates me to work harder to create more beautiful and meaningful paintings.

Tell me something most people don’t know about you. I have two. I left home at 11-years-old. I went to a boarding school (Mayo College) that was created by the British about 150 years ago. And then I went to college at St. Xavier’s College in Bombay (now Mumbai). I stayed at the hostel there. Also, I was a competitive soccer player, playing varsity in the SEC at Ole Miss. Now I am an avid golfer.

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