After an open heart surgery in August 2017, a 37-year-old lawyer took to painting. Two years down the line, Suril Desai is now a globally-exhibited abstract artist, with three shows in Mumbai, Rome and Madrid.
Since Wednesday, 40 of his paintings have been put up at the Asian Heart Institute in Bandra where he was operated upon.
The contemporary art exhibition titled, ‘Hands that Touched the Heart’ enshrines the idea that art and colour have the capacity to heal the world and bring people together. It will be on till October 6.
About his surgical experience, Mr. Desai said, “Dr. Ramakanta Panda performed my open heart surgery on August 29, 2017. It was a 12-hour surgery. After I was discharged and went home, I started to feel a lot of self-pity and depression, and kept wondering why this happened to me.”
He said to combat that state of mind, his mother asked Kisalay Vora, a family friend and well-known artist, to mentor him. “He just got paints and a canvas and didn’t tell me what to do or how to do it. This made the process very liberating and got me out of my self-pity. He taught me not to think of the result while painting,” Mr. Desai said.
He has created over 400 canvases in the past two years with the help of his ‘no mind’ practice, and believes colours evoke different emotions. “Painting and colours helped me channelise all my mental frustration, negative thoughts and emotions. If something upset me, I would just go and start painting. It’s like active meditation, and the beauty of painting is that anyone can do it.”
He has not had to worry about making money, and that has allowed him to experiment. “I am in that fortunate position and of late, I have been thinking, how can I use my position to help less fortunate artists? I want to create a blockchain to help artists and create a more fair way for payment and appreciation for artists.”
Mr. Desai’s global exhibition series is titled ‘Soul to Soul’. He usually likes to collaborate with a reputed local artist because that helps him understand the culture better, besides winning a bigger audience.
“Each colour is an expression in itself and I want people to experience these colours through my paintings,” said Mr. Desai. He wants to hold his art exhibits in hospitals instead of galleries. His dream is to hold an art show in a conflict zone like Syria or Sub-Saharan Africa.
“I want to use my art for humanitarian purposes,” Mr. Desai said.
