Sonia is a self-taught artist from Ludhiana, Punjab. Born in Chandigarh, she completed her primary education in a small town of Himachal Pradesh, Nahan. Her father had a secure job in military engineering service and they lived in an army area.
On her way to school, there was a studio and she used to watch an artist painting portraits and she was awed. While other kids played around, she often went to the studio and watched him playing with his brushes and colours. The way he signed off his paintings fascinated her. Inspired, she used to try to draw figures at the backside of her notebooks. She used to copy figures of Laxmi Devi, Lord Rama and Sita from the calenders they had at home. At the age of 10, her family moved back to Chandigarh where in my secondary school, she was introduced to oil colours and she never put her brush down.
After graduating with Mathematics and Economics from Government College, Chandigarh, she got married and moved to Ludhiana. She continued to paint whenever she got some time from all the household responsibilities. “Things become easy for a woman if she has a supporting partner”, she says “and I am blessed with one”.
Her husband encouraged her to enhance her skills and so decided to meet some senior artists in the city to learn more. “I still remember the way she appreciated my work. She gave me the confidence to display my artworks” she said.
Sonia did my first exhibition in Ludhiana in 2014 and continued with the shows in Delhi, Gurgaon, Ludhiana and Chandigarh. In 2019, she had her first successful solo show at Indian Habitat Centre, Delhi.
For Sonia, art is everywhere and each person is an artist in his or her ways. “A woman who cannot paint, sing or dance but knows how to decorate her home with beautiful curtains and bedsheets is an artist as well”, she emphasized. According to her, whenever we see something happening effortlessly, art is being created there. We can learn the techniques of art but it comes from the inside. She says, “it is the art that chooses us”.
Her work is a blend of realism and surrealism. She uses acrylic on canvas as a medium to paint. Her work reflects her observation of the social environment, human behaviour and spiritual proclivity around her. The bright acrylic colours and contrast in her paintings create a wonderful balance and makes the subject comes out very effectively.
The subject in her paintings are mostly characters from Indian mythology like Draupadi, Ganga, Aastha and Maya. Figures with are intricately portrayed and adorned with ornate objects. Her series work ‘Sacred Sounds’ not only shows her fascination towards bells but it also has a different symbolism; where the sound of the bells can meditatively calm a restless mind, t also serves as a warning to bring things into notice. Bells also symbolize how shiny little objects can lure people to them. Many of her works are on woman empowerment.
Paintings by Sonia Kumar
