Familiar faces on foreign canvas draw crowds

Connel explains his inspiration as,“My basic idea behind painting these taxi drivers was to show the Australians a part of their own community. The taxi business in Australia is huge and Punjabis form a large part of taxi drivers. These men are brave,for they work during the nights when they have to handle drunks,party goers and all sorts of people. My idea was that Australians should welcome these people with open arms.”

In turn,the paintings that have been previously displayed on streets and market places in Australia,“have served the dual purpose of helping Sikh identity establish itself as a separate identity from Osama Bin Laden’s.”

Explaining his use of multiple paper sheets to make one image,the painter says,“these people keep little things like photographs,letters,passports and other things to stay connected with their families and roots once on foreign shores. The idea was just that to show how these people have pieced together courage ,grit,dignity and hard work and live without their families and support systems.”

And the painter knows fully well that the exhibition could take a communal angle for many come,“to view this exhibition as a Sikh exhibition which it is not. I have had Sikh groups coming to me and telling me that I am doing a great work for the Sikh community but my work depicts Punjabis and is better put as Indian. In Australia or for that matter in any foreign country,Hindus,Sikhs,Muslims coming from India become Indians and that is all.”