About Darpan Kaur

Darpan Kaur is a Contemporary Abstract Artist living in Goa, India. She left her corporate career to explore Alternate Healing which led her to explorations in Art. After a decade of doing both at varying degrees, she has reached a happy equilibrium where both are included and each feeds the other. She is an intuitive Artist and her fundamentals come from Nicholas Wilton's Art2life course. She works with Oils and Acrylics and some mixed media.

If there is a language in art then abstract is the language she is most comfortable speaking. She is interested in differences and in building something layer by layer, sometimes letting the undersides peek through.

She has displayed her work across the virtual and real-world beginning with her debut at the prestigious Prince of Wales Museum in Mumbai. She has been featured in editorial write-ups and was chosen by Art278 magazine as one of 50 Women Artists of the World. In 2021, she was selected for the Art2Life International Juried Exhibition. She has had multiple solo shows in Goa and Bangalore. Most recently she displayed her work at Art Explore, New Delhi as part of the India Art Fair Parallel. Currently, you can find her art at the Goa International Airport and at Black Sheep Bistro, Panjim.

About the Artist - Darpan Kaur

Artist Statement

There was once a little girl whose nose was buried in a fairy tale and her head was in the clouds with fantastical creatures. With Art making I find myself closer than ever to that little girl, where there is magic in the creation, where known and unknown creatures appear, where fantasy lands are seen. Every new artwork is an anticipation of what the canvas will choose to reveal.

I've always loved the abstract and I've always been interested in differences. I love it when dinner plates and serving bowls don't match and when different flowers grow out of the same pot. I love curvy and jagged lines because it feels like a path that cannot be seen. I love the worn-out, distressed look because it's so interesting to see glimpses of the journey to the present. In my self-work I've been exploring replacing the 'or' with an 'and' and that's what I hope to bring into my art as well. There's a particular taste in the mouth when love, joy, and passion collide and Art does that for me.

A lot of my work is inspired by Goa, where I live. Here, there is 4 months of incessant rain and wild things grow everywhere, coloured vines shoot up to rusted gates and boundary walls and there are plants that come out of the pavement stones. It's unashamedly untamed and a feast for the eyes and that is a conscious shift that I hope to make within and in the art - to show up as I am without the 'shoulds' and 'musts' and to grow in non-linear directions.

About the Artist - Darpan Kaur

Curator's Note

In Short Stories from Goa Darpan Kaur pays homage to Goa, capturing the interiority of Goa, its wild and lush and susegad spirit through languid strokes and marks. Here a non linear branch appears; there a tiny bud comes into bloom; elsewhere one feels the irresistible pull of the sea or an ombre sunset or the anticipation of rain in greys and pinks that herald Goa's mighty monsoon.

Much like the fairy tale worlds the abstractionist is inspired by, Darpan's canvases transport us into lands of mystery and wonder where anything might happen and pretty much does. Fiery sunset oranges and softer playful pinks bloom through thunderous cloudbursts of deep greys and darker umbers while elsewhere gentle jade greens and piquant yellows add a touch of whimsy. The colours surge and swell, revealing themselves in unlikely places, evocative of luminescent surfaces and hidden depths, in quiet flow together.

Darpan sets forth on her adventures into the unknown with a single mark on an empty canvas, following the lines and blotches, smears and daubs where they want to take her ending in a deeply fulfilling happy ever after where it all comes together with a touch of magic.

The play of cadence and colour, tonality and mood entices us to enter these delightful worlds where nothing is obvious; everything is possible and the everyday is made extraordinary.

Samira Sheth
Art Curator

Samira Sheth - Art Curator