|
Padma Prasad’s works
are astonishingly powerful, elemental in their simplicity,
and unflinching in their honesty. Her subjects are mainly
people, their expressions, attitudes and postures making
visible what is often psychologically hidden – hidden
in us as individuals and in our social relations. The sumptuousness
of her color palette embodies the richness of her creativity
and vision; hot pinks, fiery reds, and earthy browns channel
energy and depth into her engagingly contemplative subjects.
In Girl on Couch, the woman’s dress almost
springs from the surface as it contrasts against an otherwise
neutral canvas, while in A Life of Flowers, she
uses a profusion of intense color as background, focusing
attention to her male subject who is seemingly lost in introspection
by dressing him in contrasting white and black.
Prasad feels her best qualification to
be an artist came with the early training she gleaned as
the daughter of the well-known contemporary Indian artist,
Dr. M. Reddeppa Naidu. Painting continuously as a child
in her father’s studio, then setting aside her brushes
as a young woman, she resumed her painting in 1997 upon
coming to America, recognizing her need to recreate life
at home in India. Exhibiting in both the United States and
Canada, one of her happiest honors came when she was awarded
the People’s Choice Award at the Fairfax Art League
Exhibition, July 2005, Old Town Hall, Virginia.
|
|
