Overview art background of Bodhi Shekhar Sirag
I started art school in 1983 because I enjoyed creating and felt drawn to be a painter with the option to become a teacher.
The school (Tehatex or "Amsterdamse Academie voor Beeldende Vorming") combined drawing and painting with getting a degree in art history and preparation for being an art teacher.
The school used to be attached to the well known Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam, but was by then independent.
It had an own style of drawing/painting, sometimes called the Lutma style.
Probably the best known artist that works in this style is Kees van Bohemen, although some of the work of Willem the Kooning is related to this style as well.
After finishing my studies in 1987 with high marks I worked on several semi-abstract series, which you can see on this website. I included some of the figurative work from my study years for completeness sake.
I started with a series of "energetic" portraits of people I knew. I have been influenced by a number of artists, the most important ones are Mark Rothko, Franz Klein, Marcel Duchamps and Bram van der Velde.
Also since my art history exam focused on the Edo period in Japan I have been influenced by Japanese ways of thinking and approaching art, like Zen-kalligraphy and woodcuts (Hiroshige, Utamaro, to name a few)
After about 7 years I made a series based on the timeliness of projects of situations.
Then around 2000 there was a period of change in my life, and I made a series of landscapes, influenced by my holidays in La Palma, one of the Canary islands.
After that until 2010 I have mostly been working on spiritual subjects like chakra's and spiritual teachers. Then my drawing and painting activities were replaced by other activities, mostly raising my 2 wonderful children Anneroos and Emanuel (Maan).