Deep Dark Blue, 2024

Cotton Patchwork on Calico with Printed Photo on Cotton, Felt Circles, Teardrops and Glass Beads, 70cm x 70cm. 

I made this piece for my Uncle Sunil, My Marmo/Mamoo (Hindi for Mum’s brother).

This artwork is quite different to my other work, a lot less representational and more conceptual. I had to be creative and intuitive because unlike art I have made about other family in my life, I never got the chance to actually get to know my Uncle. He died in 1996 when I was two and my Mum was pregnant with Josh. Josh never even got the chance to meet him yet they share characteristics and habits, aren’t genes wonderful in this sense?

This design was focussed around the meaning of Uncle Sunil’s name which is Deep Dark Blue, akin to the colour of Lord Vishnu, and the colour of our grief. A deep dark blue felt in our hearts and souls. A sadness as blue and deep and dark as the ocean. Uncle Sunil died when he was the age I am right now, 29. I felt a real urge and need to make art while we shared this age. As i count down to my 30th birthday next month I am frozen with grief, heartbreak, tragedy and pain. Life isn’t fair.

Ever since i realised i am the same age as he was when he died, it has periodically kept me awake at night. While working on this artwork, tragically it is the most connected to him I have ever felt. I just wanted to make an artwork to celebrate his memory, and acknowledge this twisted fact that he was so so young when he left this world and us.

Uncle Sunil died from complications with Neurofibromatosis. A tumour grew on his brain and the treatment made it bigger instead of shrinking it so he died in a hospice aged 29.