R. Rajkumar Sthabathy

When people look at my paintings, they see portraits, a scene, skill and technique. When I paint, I want people to understand and look at the immensity of emotions of these portraits. The wide smile of a street vendor, the lost expression of a priest, the reminiscing face of a woman, the happy laugh of a child; these aren't just portraits, it is a window into the myriad of human emotions.

Human emotions are magical; in my paintings, no one is impassive, they are in deep thought or expressing some form of sentiment or the other. I have entrenched respect for the people I see on the streets. There is a huge tidal wave of change taking place in our society, these people are not a part of it and I see them to be the conservators of our culture.

I paint these old women, autowalas, school children, milkman, and old turbaned men on the roadside mostly in watercolors because this medium gives me the freedom to bring out the expression, mood and emotion of these people. There is an unrestricted flow that gives me the liberty to replicate the immediacy of human emotions.

To me, emotions are what makes a man human. Lacking that, he is living a lie, he is not fulfilling his purpose, and he is just a lost soul. My paintings show just the tip of the iceberg of an ocean of innumerable emotions.

To see artworks by R. Rajkumar Sthabathy, click here