I think I’m best at self portraits
and I paint the faces hard, lonely and morbid. They are hard
because they reflect what goes on in my head. It’s difficult
to pin-point what inspires these – one day, I was clearing
my shelves and came across a beautiful, smiling picture from
an old film. I looked at the mirror and said, “I don’t
smile like that any more.” That’s when a visual
flashed in my mind and I began painting the woman in ‘Main
Zinda Hoon’, the scene where she is in the mental asylum
in the last scene, sitting in a daze, on the swing, in her imagination,
talking to her dead father. I put a placard in her hand that
read, Lapatta, on which was stuck this beautiful sparking sepia
picture.
deepti
