Deepa Khanna Sobti — Contemporary Art Curator Magazine

May 1

May 1 Deepa Khanna Sobti

Biography

Deepa Khanna Sobti is a Singaporean self-taught artist, poet and philanthropist. She creates abstract expressionist oil paintings and writes a poem for each artwork. Her powerful work reflects her deep dedication towards investigating and exploring life differently from the way it presents itself through the lens of worldly conditioning. Her practice is the embodiment of her philosophy of life as a wholistic experience and she believes that if life is looked at from a wholistic lens then nature is all that is ever experienced. She uses only a palette knife and thick impasto oil paints in layers to give her paintings a more spontaneous and gestural feel. She has won several global juried art awards, including Royal Art Prize 2016 and awards at the London Art Biennale and the Chianciano Art Biennale in Italy. She has exhibited her work in over 35 solo and group exhibitions worldwide. She donates 75% of profits from her practice to several charities that she is closely associated with.

Artist Statement

My art style is abstract expressionist. The biggest inspiration for my work is nature and the processes of corrosion and erosion, which produce unbelievable abstractions and dramatic stories as the natural pigments, and materials blend and lose themselves in each other. I use only a palette knife since it is held differently from a brush or a pen or pencil, which due to repetitive use, unconsciously move towards already learned shapes and forms from memory. The palette knife draws more on spontaneity and pushes me to steer away from all that is known. I very rarely have a plan or image for the work I start. I ride with whatever comes up without judgment and keep going until it is the eyes and not the mind that finally tells me that a piece is complete. I look for all overall balance and depth without any semblance of particularized form. My eyes seem to love the color black which inevitably seems to find itself in almost all my paintings. I like to challenge my mind with more and more intricate color and shape interactions while still striving for overall balance without succumbing to predictability and form.

What first prompted you to think of becoming an artist?

I believe life finds a way to express and experience itself in the most natural ways. These supersede the entire system of human thought. My brain was always drawn to beauty and color since a young age although the societal system in which it operated then seemed to favor more formalized education in the realm of mathematics and finance. But as I dismantled the structures of the human mind and conditioning, it was only natural that art would find me which it did by what seemed like a chance at the time. Slowly my entire realm of thought, action and words aligned with what is most natural for me. Naturally, I am programmed to be an artist, deep thinker and philanthropist.

What kind of an artist do you ultimately see yourself?

Abstraction is what fascinates me since it is an endless realm of infinite potential. There is no scale or past framework that abstraction embodies. It took me a few years to realize that abstraction was what I loved doing. It is also completely complimentary to my poetry which also examines and celebrates life without fixed outlines of perception. I have stayed committed to using only the pallet knife in more and more ingenious and challenging ways since there is very little control the knife offers me and which I am grateful to it for.

What are you hoping to communicate to the viewer through your work?

I hope for the viewers of my work to be able to slow down to their own knowledge and their own belief systems that limit them and yet remain untouched and rather heavy. My work pushes them to question their most venerate beliefs to open them to perceiving life in many new wondrous ways without any direct agenda to finding anything that can be grabbed or held on to. This stillness and simultaneous flow is what I perceive true beauty and bliss to be and to be sensed as the most natural to our being.

Can you explain the process of creating your work?

My paintings are preceded by an almost surge of energy and excitement that seeing colors or patterns evokes in me. I normally start with some idea about using perhaps two colors and perhaps even some semblance of an image of what may be produced. I am always humbled and delighted at the moment which always completely destroys all I expected and knew, and I am drawn into sheer play and energy of creation which knows only itself at the moment and suddenly I find a few hours later that maybe 30 colors were used and immense interaction of lines and angles happened to produce what is always ultimately amazing to me. Conscious memory does not register a process as such for next time and I am free to submit to it again totally fresh.

What is your favorite part of the creative process?

My favorite part is when I feel I am stuck and confused and yet something in me is then brought forth which surrenders totally to deeper insight which always brings new ways of looking and generates a greater flow and I find myself completely one with the colors and lines and their movements. It is a moment when courage and fascination combine to produce magical newness always.

Can you give us an insight into current projects and inspiration, or what we can look forward to from you in the near future?

I feel I will further explore intricacies and layering in my work. I will also perhaps look to create larger pieces. I am also finding greater and greater use of contrasting colors in my work. However, I don’t believe in planning too much so we shall see what plan life has for these hands and eyes. I find the greatest width of perception through trust and surrender at the moment. In terms of inspiration, there has never been a time when I have not found life at the moment to not be an inspiration. There is such beauty always, especially when we look around us spatially instead of with a specific focus. Beauty is all there ever is. It never cannot be so.

Website https://www.emptinessisfull.com

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