When I returned from my first visit to India this February, all I could think about was how I could get back there. Travelling around Rajastan alone had been a true thrill, and as I sifted through my photos – I actually bothered getting a couple of hundred printed and pasted into an album – I came across this photo of a wistful man who had been gently enhanced. Some skilled hand had encouraged his oddly pointed bonce and added lashes and – could it be – eyeliner to his sepia lids.
I got in touch with the Eternal Mewar representatives at Udaiphur City Palace (the ancestor of the Mewar family traces his lineage back to the Sun) and it was agreed that I would be allowed to put on an exhibition in February 2016. The exhibition is to be based on the fine collection of photographs of characters from the British Raj who were stationed in the city and this blog will fill in the background of my researches and the development of the new paintings I will be showing there in February.
I would just like to say that, at the time of choosing the project, I was pretty much utterly ignorant of how appallingly the British behaved in India, and now I feel a sense of revulsion at the task I have set myself. However this photo alone has given me much material for making new paintings, so I am just getting on with it and going to see what happens.