http://www.navhindtimes.in/i-have-janam-janam-ka-rishta-with-india/
BY ARTI DAS | NT BUZZ Daisy Rockwell, USA-based artist, author and academician, feels strongly about India and its culture and believes that her relationship with India goes beyond this life. “I have a janam, janam ka rishta with India”, says the artist who is hosting her first ever art exhibition in India at the Goa Art and Literary Festival (GALF). “I never got a chance to exhibit my work in India, so when Vivek (Menezes) invited me to host an exhibition in Goa I grabbed the opportunity”, says Daisy, who took a break from academics around eight years ago to fulfil her desire for painting and writing. Daisy, the granddaughter of artist Norman Rockwell, never wanted to be an artist as she felt the pressure of comparing herself with her family (her parents are also artists). “I was not comfortable about being compared with my family of artists and wanted to run away from art and do something different, of my own. However, after a few years in academics I began feeling the non-creativeness, even suffocating aspect of my academic pursuits.” Daisy holds a PhD in South Asian studies and is an acclaimed Hindi translator. Being brought up in a family of artists helped Daisy to take creative liberty with her work and more importantly learn how to execute ideas on canvas. “I was never nervous about painting in bold colours or any style as I was aware about the result”, says Daisy. INDIAN CONNECTION Daisy who is well informed about Indian culture and languages says: “During my learning days I was interested in languages. As I was tired of western languages, I randomly selected to learn Hindi and in the process got totally involved with the Indian culture.” She also knows Tamil, Malayalam, Sanskrit and Urdu. She paints under the name Takhallus or Lapata (pronounced ‘laapataa’). The later, in Urdu, means missing or absconding. However, Daisy says that her India affinity did not develop after she started learning languages of the sub continent and dates back to much before that. “When I was growing up I liked to use bold colours like I had seen my mother painting. I liked painting miniatures even before I knew about Indian miniature art”, says Daisy, who loves Indian Kalighat paintings besides Indian pop art. The painter has another creative feather in her cap – that of an author, and has published several books. Her most talked about book is ‘The Little Book of Terror’, a volume of paintings and essays on the global war on terror. The book features her painting depicting terrorists as humans, and projects them in a different manner altogether. “The concept came to me after I came across images of these ‘bad and evil’ people. They had only one expression. Additionally there was no information about them other than that of their terror image. They intrigued me and I started asking questions like ‘who are they?’ ‘Why did they do what they did?’ My portraits of them are ambiguous; I am not taking any stand. At the same time I want people to be alert about information being fed to them. Jaagte raho”, says Daisy. For this book Daisy got comments filled with anger, but it didn’t affect her. “I got around 400 angry messages. There were people who questioned how the grand-daughter of Norman Rockwell could do such thing, as Norman stood for good. I was expecting hate mail, but I got fan mail instead. The book also gave my work visibility”, says Daisy. The realisation that every story has two sides has come to Daisy because of her India association. “I learnt that everything has two perspectives. For Indians Bhagat Singh is a freedom fighter, but for the British he was a terrorist. Additionally, Indian movies project terrorists in a sympathetic light like we saw in the movie ‘Dil Se’”, says Daisy. (As part of the Goa Arts and Literary Festival 2014, an art exhibition of paintings by USA artist, Daisy Rockwell is being held at the Directorate of Art and Culture, Sanskruti Bhavan, Patto, Panaji till December 7, from 10.30 a.m. to 7.00 p.m. the exhibition is open to all.)
