I’d love to be amidst nature, says artist Prem Singh

Manpriya Singh

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, April 1

Before the lockdown, we all had a life, but ironically, it’s the lockdown that has taught us how to live. In the process, reflect on things, reconnect with things, especially those around us — pets, people, plants.

As the question, ‘How’s the lockdown going’, temporarily replaces the traditional form of greetings, novel ideas emerge every time it is put to someone.

“I spend quite a bit of time gazing out of the window,” laughs Prem Singh, an eminent artist and former principal of the Government College of Art. It’s cruel ironies of time and the lockdown that has reversed the roles for good. “One of my sons is in Canada and the other in the UK. Now, they call us up daily to check if we are home and haven’t ventured out.”

In fact, that’s not where the instructions end. “They even tell us to stock on ration and other groceries for the rainy days ahead because this problem, unfortunately might take time to end completely.”

While he hopes his children and grandchildren were with him during the lockdown, but since that couldn’t be so, much of the time these days is also spent in conversations and exchanging notes on the Covid-19 situation in the countries where his immediate and extended families are based. “Every day there is an update, there is a hope and there are measures taken. Let’s hope we get out of it, changed for good.”

Reading is something that he enjoys, but ironically, “I had ordered a few books to read from Amazon and that order is stuck in the lockdown.”

Even though artists are famous for spending significant time of their day in the studio, he still misses the freedom, because “Freedom is something the most dear to the artist. But I don’t feel that freedom now. I’d love to be outside, amidst nature.”

He adds, “I miss interacting with my friends and sharing my work with them.”

This is perhaps one of the few instances in history when the ironic lack of freedom has actually given freedom of time and space.

An individual cannot remain unaffected by what’s happening around; an artist even more so. This is why his drawings inspired by the lockdown depict several things like, “We in conversation with the things around — pets, people and plants. The works also reflect on how we are breathing the present.”