2005 to 2015 · 7 works

Faith

A lamp, a thread, a page of scripture, the morning paper. Devotion as attention, given daily.

Faith is rarely loud. Most days, it is a small light kept burning.

Not spectacle, but habit. A lamp is raised to a wall of scripture. A devotee sits before it. A priest lifts the aarti flame. A peepal is wound in red thread.

And a man opens his morning paper. In these paintings, that too is a kind of faith.

Dr Dolly Prasad beside The Blue Buddha at ICCR — Beside The Blue Buddha at A Lifetime to Paint, ICCR, New Delhi, June 2010.

The Blue Buddha, oil on canvas, by Dr Dolly Prasad — The Blue Buddha · Oil on canvas · 36 × 48 in · 2015

Light and scripture

What do you bring to a prayer?

And what do you hope to leave behind?

Vakratunda, oil on canvas, by Dr Dolly Prasad — Vakratunda

Gayatri, oil on canvas, by Dr Dolly Prasad — Gayatri

The Buddhas

Stillness, held in blue and green.

The Blue Buddha, in an imagined room, a virtual room study — The Blue Buddha, in an imagined room. A virtual room study, not a photograph.

Buddha Under the Bodhi Tree, oil on canvas, by Dr Dolly Prasad — Buddha Under the Bodhi Tree

III

Daily rites

A flame, a tree wound with thread, the morning news: the rituals of an ordinary day.

The Aarti, oil on canvas, by Dr Dolly Prasad — The Aarti

The Peepal Shrine, oil on canvas, by Dr Dolly Prasad — The Peepal Shrine

The Newspaper Reader, oil on canvas, by Dr Dolly Prasad — The Newspaper Reader

Interested in one of these paintings? Send an enquiry