Natasha Kumar
Natasha's passion and inspiration is India. She's half-Indian, Kashmiri on her father's side and English on her mother's side, so the sub-continent is there in her genes. In her work it comes out as a riotous collision of colour and characters, palaces and people, local Coke adverts and holy cows. The contemporary Indian everyday, with not a Taj Mahal in sight.
As a child her relationship with India was more love-hate than love-love. Endless journeys visiting aunties squashed on the back seat of an Ambassador car. An equally endless diet of boiled eggs, dhal and rice en route. But then suddenly, there would be a village where dancing bears and tiny children acrobats performed impossible tricks in the heat, by the dusty roadside. Totally fascinating. I had to be dragged away. The fascination has remained with her, and as she has developed as an artist it has evolved too. Over the years it has grown to encompasses the architecture and sculpture of India, capturing a sense of place through depictions of intricate, stone-fretwork jali windows, crumbling palaces and eerie step wells. A major motif in her work has been the chhatri, the quintessential North Indian stone-canopy. But in her attempts to capture some sense of such a vast and varied place, and communicate it, she has come to realise her work is equally about capturing her own sense of identity. The thought is particularly true of her Indian women series. Begun as simple observations of women going about various tasks, private or public, the works became Natasha's observations on the roles available to women in India, ultimately evolving into a narrative of an Indian everywoman's journey to empowerment. As she developed the series, Natasha noticed that more and more often the women that were her subject matter appeared in the Rajasthani manner veiled, glimpsed, elusive. Without her realizing it they had become part of an artistic exploration of her own heritage, as well as theirs, an exploration that many second generation British-Indians will recognise. In each painting I was asking the great question what can I know of their lives, that might have been mine?
En plein air is where she's at her artistic happiest in India, observing the swirl of street or market life as it takes place. Above all, it's colour which she loves, as an essential part of Indian existence. Everyone knows that pink is the navy blue of India, but not that, unlike for us, colours come loaded with cultural significance. Sensual red is auspicious for weddings; green signifies life and happiness, black kohl around a baby's eyes works as spiritual protection. Natasha brings them all to her work, in bold and compelling signature colours, evoking mood and feelings in vivid, mesmerising combinations.
