Deepti Saxena

I am an Indian-Canadian artist living and working in Toronto. Back in my teens, I was an average science student like every other kid and wanted to pursue my career either in Engineering or Medical, perhaps those were the go-to career options we had back in year 2000. During my school days, I realized my inclination towards the figures, diagrams and drawing which were the integral part of my study. I started enjoying working on medical illustrations and interestingly I scored more in any other subject due to the perfection and details in my medical drawings. Since then, somewhere inside I realized that I enjoy 

illustration part of it more than the actual subject. Thus, I decided to pursue my further studies in Arts and give it a try. Surely, it wasn’t an easy decision as we did not have many career options in the field of Art back in early twenties! However, without any single doubt, I have pursued my career in the creative field and got my first break as a full time Graphic Designer in 2006 and it’s been now 16 years I am working in the same field. Now, as I always wanted to be a fulltime Artist which requires a lot of time, dedication and patience to be succeed and one needs a regular source of income to survive, I have a well-paid

job which helps me practically. Emotionally, I am still working on my goals and carving my path with every new paintings of mine

My family has always been my driving force behind this whole journey. They have always supported my decisions during the tough times. Despite knowing the fact of limited opportunities in Arts, my parents encouraged me to go for a Bachelor and Master degree courses in the same field. In fact, they kept reminding me (they still do) to do paintings in my spare time after having a well-paid job. I can’t forget my Dad taking care of painting submissions to the art shows when I can’t be available due to the other priorities. I must accept that due to their belief in my paintings, I have gathered the courage to keep working and doing my bit!

Talking about my art, during the stat of my journey (almost about 2 decades before), I was quite hesitant in using colors in my paintings and I used to love painting black and white (mainly charcoal on paper). I soon started exploring other medias and finally landed on mixed medium either on Archival Paper or Canvas. I used to love Salvador Dali’s work and approach and his surreal style. I was also inspired by Picasso’s cubism i.e., bold paint strokes and muted color tones used in his work. Later as I kept exploring the other styles and artworks by masters, I realized that I do love abstraction more than any other style and hence tried my hands on! My work in the beginning (4-5 years) were all abstract done on large size paper and focusing on the overall composition.

Thereafter, I switched over to Figurative Painting as this time I have decided to go beyond my comfort zone and start introducing colors in my paintings. My last series was all about “Human Figure and their daily Lives. The paintings in this series were mostly on canvas and depicts my finely molded head studies even though they are only made up of the jumble of townscapes, traffic lights, autos, lorries, cell phones and all such non-emotive stuff of everyday life. Heads that attempt to become minds. The eyes of these clearly etched profiles is concentrated. Each sketched persona as if looking into the future and wants to know how to cope with whatever fate has been ordained for it.

Finally, about my current series – “Unconditional Love!”, now that I know I can do figurative and colors on canvas, I would like to take a step back and explore abstract art (my first love) with the touch of realism. Colors are now my friends, and we get along very well. Thus, including a lot more primary colors in my abstract form merging with the ancient monumental structures and elements! Adding a bit more about my love for historical monument, started from the very beginning of my arts college days when I used to spend days and days sitting and observing city monument, studying the architectural shapes/form and sketching random people sitting there, I feel that’s some thing which

still has a special place in my heart and that’s what I am trying to depict in my current series by adding layers of colors which shows the archeological beauty and playing around with different textures to give a vintage feel to the artwork along with some realist ic touch of monuments and different historical elements to enhance the overall look and feel.

• Master of Visual Arts from India in 2006.
• Bachelors in Fine Arts from India in 2004.