Kalpna Saksena

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Kalpna Saksena

Artist Statement

My love of art dates from an early influence from my father, who almost abandoned his medical studies to pursue the life of an artist. Drawing has always been a passion for me and the route that has lead me to painting for the last twenty years. Paint offers me a medium to express the images which interest me in a wide variety of ways and colours.

My painting themes revolve around humans and their environment, from buildings to machinery to everyday objects. I like to represent a compelling image, portraying it in my work such that it draws in the viewer to explore and consider whatever they wish - how we live; our surroundings and our environment.

I work mostly with oils, occasionally acrylics when I need to build up the underpainting or layers fast - sometimes also to create a tension between a matt and oil finish in the final image. The choice of medium depends upon the perceived aim of the work involved - whether I am aiming for a wash, transparency, translucence or opacity. I layer, sandpaper or remove with a medium to achieve the final ‘mood’ I am aiming for in any given piece. I like to allow the medium and process to create an appropriate response to the image, as in a construction site as in the South Bank paintings with layers to a more ephemeral - nostalgic, haunting feel as in ‘Khan Market’.

I aim to take the viewer around the whole painting to an area of particular interest; to notice what is painted and what is left out for their own imagination to complete. I would hope for each viewer to ‘get’ something different in the way they look at a piece of work seeing something in between what I have seen and what their imagination has filled.

Bio

Exhibitions:

Sky Landscape Artist of the Year 2021 

54 The Gallery, Solo Show, July 2019

Pinner Sketch Club Annual Exhibition, August 2019

Cahoots Art Group at The Etz Chayim Gallery, Sept- October 2019

Hesketh Hubbard 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019 at The Mall Galleries
The Artist & Leisure Painter Open Art Competition- Patchings Art Festival 2017, 2018
The Pastel Society 2015 Mall Galleries
Pinner Sketch Club Annual Exhibition 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018 
The United Society of Artists- 2014 Cork Street, London
Pinner Sketch Club- 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017
The Other Art Fair, November 2011 & 2012, London
Nehru Centre, Mayfair - September, 2009 : Solo Exhibition
Harrow Arts Centre - Various
Brunel University - 2005 

Past Commissions: 
City bank- Triptych: Before Serenity and Bridge
London Law Firm- 2 paintings of the Olympic Site 
Portraits 

Courses:
The Princes Drawing Trust - Shoreditch/Kensington Palace
Slade Summer School, UCL
Private tuition 

Spelling of my name: My first name is Kalpna, often mis-spelt as Kalpana, surname is spelt Saksena, not Saxena