Karmic Content

If there’s one common element that binds youngsters living in the interiors of Punjab,it is their will to bag a plush job in one of the metros and live the “fast life”. It was no different for 26-year-old Ankush Safaya. He completed his engineering degree and moved to Delhi to work with an MNC a few years back. “But once there,I was in a state of emotional turmoil. I was split into two. One part of me wanted to go back to my hometown,Hoshiarpur and to be in the warm culture,open spaces while the other was trying to adjust to a busy life in Delhi,where inside the closed walls of multi-storied buildings,one does not get to see the sun for days,” says Safaya. This is the very turmoil reeling in his mind that he has tried to portray in his abstract painting Gold Rush in bold strokes of bronze and gold against a backdrop of dull black.

On this,as on another canvas,Safaya wants to depict his longing to return to the colourful life of Punjab. “All my works are a reflection of my mood and the places I have visited over the years,” he points out. Some of it is expressed through abstract paintings — in geometric shapes. His series “Eternity” is marked by excessive use of circular forms. “Painting fills in the void in my life,” says Safya,adding that he got back to painting in 2008,when a friend sensing his state of mind,gifted him some paints and a canvas. From then on,he has been on a creative overdrive,fueling his emotions with art. In his last series “Monsoon Sutra”,he had an installation that showcased a roadside tea stall as the meeting place for a rickshaw puller and a corporate honcho. “These paintings help me understand the divide between places and provide a resolution with both of them,” he says about the exhibition,which is being hosted by ArtFile,a city-based art consultancy firm. Safya is also working on sculptures and photography,but at the moment his “romance with abstracts” makes him happy.

The exhibition is on at Flamme Bois Bistro,Sector 7,till December 25