Somewhere along the way, Krishna stopped being a subject I chose and became a presence I returned to. The blue, the flute, the peacock feather — I did not learn these from a manual. They were in the house I grew up in, in the calendar art on the wall, in the family puja corner. When I paint them, I am not illustrating. I am remembering.
Indian iconography is a language of inherited symbolism, and like any language it can be spoken fluently or badly. The lotus is not a flower; it is purity rising out of mud. The cow behind Krishna is not livestock; it is gentleness and abundance. My work, as I understand it, is to speak that language with a contemporary accent — respectful of the grammar, honest about the times.
Painting as prayer
There is a particular slowness that devotional work demands. I cannot paint Krishna the way I paint a still life — quickly, analytically. Something in the process insists on reverence: cleaner water, a quieter room, more patience between layers. Whether you call it prayer or concentration probably depends on you. For me, the distinction has never been very clear.
Some paintings are looked at. Some are looked after. And some — this is the highest compliment I know — are prayed to.
I have written before about portraits that families pray to, pieces that hang where the household gathers. Devotional painting lives on that same shelf. When someone tells me their Krishna has become part of the family's morning, I know the painting has finished the journey it began at my easel. It no longer belongs to art. It belongs to the home.
The Pichhwai tradition, the temple ornament, the deep blues and golds — I borrow from all of it with both humility and appetite. Tradition, I have found, does not mind being reinterpreted. It minds being ignored. Every devotional canvas is my way of keeping the conversation going.
