The Open Studio / Shruti
Shruti
Contemplating
A purple glow burns under every blue in this quiet room
Blue settles on the walls like an evening that came too early.
A bowed head. Hair falls over the eyes.
Under the skin a purple keeps burning.
One shoulder catches the light from the left and holds it.
On the table a striped shape waits in red and white, the only warm word in the room.
The cloth at the edge remembers pink.
Nobody speaks. The thought is not finished yet.
The work
A figure sits in a quiet room with eyes turned down. Shruti paints the scene in blues and violets. Light comes from the left. It falls across one shoulder and the side of the face. Shruti always begins with a purple underpainting. Parts of it stay uncovered so that it glows through the top layers. Each painting starts as a rough sketch and layout. Here the brushstrokes stay loose and easy to see on the wall, the skin and the striped cloth.
In the artist’s words
“I always start with a rough idea, a layout and a base sketch. I work mainly with oil pastels and oil paints. Whenever I see texture, I love to replicate it using thick impasto strokes. I begin with a purple underpainting because it gives a nice glowing effect. I intentionally leave the underpainting to show so that it glows.”
- Theme
- Solitude and quiet thought
- Material
- Oil on canvas
- Size
- 76.2 × 91.44 × 3.5 cm
- Year
- 2026
- Edition
- 1 of 4
- Framed
- No
- About the artist
- College of Art
- From
- New Delhi
- Code
- RC-272
