A Sikh Artist in his Studio

This horizontally oriented photograph depicts a painter working in his studio. The artist is shown standing just to the left of the center of the composition, with brush in hand. He is surrounded on all sides with images of Sikhs, from the saintly subject of his large painting, to a cardboard cut out of a heroic warrior carrying a sword emerging from the left, to the small portrait bust sitting on the stand behind him. The overall effect of these figures, real and replicated, creates a playful trompe l’oeil within the image. The energy and mood of the photograph is further heightened by the brilliant use of color and the Carravaggesque light enterring the composition from an outside source at the lower right and bouncing of the backs of the two seated men watching the artist. That light source is visually referenced and extended by the fields of bright yellow pigment used in the painting, forming a seat cover, the vest of the man in the foreground and halo on the central figure.