10 Questions with Deepa Khanna Sobti
Deepa Khanna Sobti is a Singaporean national of Indian origin.
She has no formal education in art or philosophy. She holds an MBA degree with a finance major but gave up a decade-long career in banking in 2000.
From a very early age, she was very curious to find the ultimate meaning of life, and this curiosity led to a lifelong investigation of the mind and its manifestations.
She began painting in 1999 and started writing poetry in 2012. She writes an original poem for each painting that she makes, and both are exhibited together.
Deepa Khanna Sobti portrait
ARTIST STATEMENT
Deepa's art style is abstract expressionist. The biggest inspiration for her 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.
She uses 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 her to steer away from all that is known.
Deepa very rarely has a plan or image for the work she starts. Instead, she rides with whatever comes up without judgment and keeps going until it is the eyes and not the mind that finally tells her that a piece is complete.
She looks for overall balance and depth without any semblance of particularized form. Her eyes seem to love the color black, which inevitably seems to find itself in almost all her paintings.
Deepa likes to challenge her mind with more intricate color and shape interactions while still striving for overall balance without succumbing to predictability and form.
Overall, her art and poetry strongly suggest to the viewer to investigate their present experience to realize what reality actually is. And to see that the world as it is currently understood is merely a relative imaginary construct comprising mainly of thought. And that even within that thought construct, there is no separation between the individual and the world he inhabits. And to pave the way for the 'Everything' and the 'Nothing' to shine through the mind.
The Substance Of All Things, Oil on Linen, 70x90 cm, 2019 © Deepa Khanna Sobti
INTERVIEW
How did you start making art? Do you remember when you realized that you were going to become an artist?
I feel being an artist is more a way of life. It’s something you always carry within you at all times. I was always interested in drawing as a child but did not study it formally. As life moved on and I studied and worked in the finance industry, I always found myself drawn to colors. When my daughter was born, I quit finance and joined some hobby classes in painting and drawing. A few years later, a chance encounter with a stranger in my coffee shop led to my first art show, and there I realized that I was going to be a professional artist as the number of shows and art awards started coming my way at a fast pace.
What is your personal aim as an artist?
As with most things in my life, I like to trust more and flow with life as it comes to me. I don’t really plan life too much. However, as an abstract artist and poet, I seek to make my viewers think differently from their regular way of thinking and seeing life. Our culture, society, and religion reinforce our identity as a separately existing individual, and my work suggests that we question our core assumptions to see if that is really true.
The False Idea Of The Particular, Oil on Linen, 70x90 cm, 2018 © Deepa Khanna Sobti
There Is Only The Dream, Oil on Linen, 70x90 cm, 2018 © Deepa Khanna Sobti
What is the creative process behind your works? And where do you find inspiration?
I find inspiration in almost everything I look at, whether in nature and its processes of erosion or corrosion or any regular object seen differently from its normal way of being looked at. I also find combinations of colors very inspiring. I almost feel it’s impossible not to be inspired by life since I find it beautiful wherever I look. The colors, angles, shadows, and reflections are everywhere.
Tell us about the materials and techniques that you use. How do you choose them, and do they have particular meanings to you?
I use only a palette knife as a tool since it draws more on spontaneity and cannot be held in a planned way. There are a few ways in which my hand uses the knife, and I can never be sure which way will be encountered on a particular day. Even the amount of pressure and the amount of paint that it picks can never be controlled. I like jumping into the unknown with a knife. I use only oil paints since they are the traditional medium and use only natural oils and pigments.
What is the most challenging part of your work?
Abstract art is liberating because it is a constant challenge since you are literally going against all you consciously know. It is both humbling and freeing. The painting keeps changing as I go along and seems to reach its own completion it seems. I can never plan it. This makes it both challenging and exhilarating. I can never save the process to conscious memory, which makes it forever new and fresh.
Immediate Beauty, Oil on Linen, 70x90 cm, 2021 © Deepa Khanna Sobti
What do you wish to communicate to your public?
Through my art and poetry, I push the viewers to look beyond what they already know and jump into the unknown and into newer ways to perceive life differently from what they normally do. There is normally no central focal point in my art, but there is an overall play and harmony that invites the viewer to see life as a holistic happening instead of fixed forms and events. There is nothing separate ever, and this is our actual experience, but we view life from the lens of our knowledge from the past based on separation.
Do you have an essential philosophy that guides you in your creative expression?
My essential philosophy is that life is always whole and complete and yet forever in change. Therefore, it can never be understood and does not need to be understood using the mind and language. Words, I feel, are a limited and narrow way to perceive life and eventually have their limited usefulness in pointing away from themselves.
Everything is Everything, Oil on Linen, 90x70 cm, 2020 © Deepa Khanna Sobti
What do you think about the art community and market?
I have never been a fan of too much structure and dogma. The art industry should not be as limited as it is. It needs to be opened to be more available to the common person. Yet, to me, if something is vibrationally in tune with our most natural self, it happens on its own. I must admit I find myself withdrawing many times from the more commercial aspects of the art world.
But I Haven’t Disappeared, Oil on Linen, 70x90 cm, 2020 © Deepa Khanna Sobti
It’s Only Your Idea, Oil on Linen, 90x70 cm, 2020 © Deepa Khanna Sobti
Do you find that the shift to digital exhibitions and art fairs has helped you promote your work?
I did find the digital world has helped me a bit. However, physical exhibitions have a more natural and organic feel to them. I do not actively promote my work very much. I trust life and flow with what it brings me by itself.
And lastly, what are you working on now, and what are your plans for the future? Anything exciting you can tell us about?
Lately, I am doing larger-sized works and enjoying that. London has always been a big and exciting market for my work, and I hope to be doing more there again in the near future as the world opens again.
