A Portrait of my Father

It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything about my art. Last year was a tough year. I lost my father in August. My world was turned upside down and my art took a back seat. I created a portrait of my father, to honor and commemorate him and for the wonderful and rich life he gave my mother and I.

It’s the first portrait I ever created in the style of work that I usually do. I added three flowers by his forehead that represent, my dad, mom and myself-our close knit family. The patterns and designs also serve for the intellect and knowledge my father held. He was so well versed and had many ideas and thoughts and his mind was always “active”.

I took the portrait back to Bombay to our family home, where my mother had it framed and hung up on the wall, above the antique desk that belonged to my patriarchal grandparents.

 

Jasmine and rose petals lay below his portrait.

 

Here’s another angle of the portrait in the context of our living room.

Hope you enjoyed the portrait.

With love,

Amrita

 

 

Website Re-Designed

It’s been a long time coming and my website needed a re-design. With some help from my dear husband, I was finally able to update it. Please take a look at it at http://www.amritadutia.com

I’m looking to grow my art business and with the help of you all, I hope to achieve this. Please follow me on Facebook and Instagram. And I would be grateful if you could share my website and social media links with your families and friends.

With gratitude,

Amrita

Upcoming Show: First Friday Artwalk!

In just about a week I have a show at Studio Mantra in Eugene, Oregon. It’s going to be part of the First Friday Artwalk, (you can read the short write up on their site) so hopefully a lot of folks will come out and support the arts. I’m excited, nervous, overwhelmed, and everything else in between.  There’s still a lot to do and I’m running out of time, but I know I will have everything completed and ready to hang early next week.   With the help of my hubby, the hanging process should go relatively smoothly.

Other than me, there are two other artists who will be show casing their work at Studio Mantra. My dear friend Ariana Schwartz teaches fashion design and textiles at Lane Community College. Her fashion class, ReFashion Lab works with newspaper, cardboard, cloth and every day upcycle objects that are then created into fashion pieces. Her students will be modeling their creative fashion wear. Ariana created the dress on the right. She’s an amazing fashion designer and highly creative.

  

The next artist is Margie Templeton. Margie creates beautiful watercolor and oil paintings. Margie spends half the year in Eugene creating watercolor paintings and the other half of the year in Bali, Indonesia creating oil paintings. Her paintings are colorful and vibrant.

Hope you wonderful local folks can come by and support us at this event. Here are the details:

First Friday Artwalk on June 5th, 2015

At Studio Mantra: 40 East 5th Avenue Eugene, Oregon 97402

Time: 6pm

Thanks and see you soon.

Amrita

What’s my process like?

People ask me how I create my art and whether I plan out my patterns.  The answer to that is NO! I don’t create sketches and roughs before I tackle an art piece. I create what I feel like and see where the patterns take me.  It’s a journey in of itself as my patterns often have an ‘organic’ feel to them. I like doing it this way because I prefer to surprise myself. I like the idea of going from a blank sheet of paper to something that is finished that I can admire and hopefully you do too.

My art is intricate and therefore labor intensive. Just the other day someone was looking at my work and they asked me if I stenciled the designs and when I told them it’s done free hand, they were shocked. It puts it into perspective and its great when someone can appreciate the amount of time and detail I give to my art. I turn on music sometimes and just draw for hours on end. It allows me to have time with myself-to be immersed in my thoughts and feelings. It is my deepest mediation. And it is what gives me fulfillment and pleasure.

Listening to people’s reactions to my art gives me joy. I like to hear what people have to say, what they think of when they see my art, what parts of the piece they like more than others, or what new shapes I ‘put’ together and the colors I choose.  We all have a different eye and we interpret things in our own way and to me that’s exciting. There’s no right and wrong, just a matter of perspective.  Our experiences in life shape us and we all come from such different walks of life. We all have a different outlook and that to me is wonderful.