Swaroop Mukerji loves working with the Indian community in Wellington. The self-taught watercolourist from Kolkata is on a four-week artist residency at Bolton St Cottage, part of the Wellington Asia Residency Exchange programme (WARE).
Mr Mukerji, who has been painting since he was 10, has travelled a lot across Europe, Asia and Africa, producing work for the World Bank, the Hong Kong Tourism Board and Rashtrapati Bhavan, the Presidential Palace in Delhi.
As part of a group of Indian artists, he also did a series of paintings of the Angkor Wat temple in Cambodia in December 2010, which will be exhibited across India later this year.
Invited by friends in New Zealand, he had an exhibition in Wellington in 2010. It is a place he finds very creative and culturally active. “It’s somewhat like Kolkata, where poetry, dance, drama, music and art are practised at all levels and by all strata of society.
"In fact, every Bengali child in Kolkata, as soon as he is able to hold a pencil, starts going to art or dance lessons.”
In fact he was so keen to establish a cultural partnership between the two cities that he invited artists Jacky Pearson and Pavithra Devadatta from Watercolour New Zealand to hold their first joint exhibition in Kolkata in September 2010.
For his second trip to New Zealand, Mr Mukerji decided to work on one of his favourite themes -people going about their daily lives. He has been painting portraits of Wellingtonians of Indian origin, to be shown at the Diwali Festival of Lights in October 2011.
“It was during my first visit that I came across Jennifer King [Asia:NZ’s culture director] and she suggested that. I thought it was a great idea – it gave me an opportunity to come back to New Zealand.”
Among the 13 paintings he has completed, there is a portrait of prominent Indian New Zealand MP Rajen Prasad. What Mr Mukerji really enjoys is the personal touch of being able to capture ordinary people at work, at play or at home.
“You have to get to know the person, his background so as to be able to capture the character, the essence of the person.”
The painter has connected with local Indians on a day-to-day basis – for instance, by just walking into a Shell service station and introducing himself to the local Indian employee.
This turned out to be a fortunate acquaintance as the employee took Mr Mukerji home to visit his family and to meet his three-month-old daughter. The result is a lovely portrait capturing a tender moment between father and baby.
Attending big local gatherings for the Holi Festival and the Indian bazaar in March has given Mr Mukerji the opportunity to engage more with Wellington’s Indian community.
“The Indian community is very vibrant here. It felt like I was at home! Everything looked so familiar; Indian people here like to preserve their identity. They like to observe their rituals but at the same time, they seem to be well integrated in the larger society.”
WARE was set up in 2007 through a partnership between Wellington City Council City Arts and Asia:NZ. To date, ten artists from various Asian countries have lived and worked in Wellington thanks to the programme.
The aim of the WARE programme is to facilitate artist exchanges with the Asian region while developing Wellington’s international creative identity in Asia.
- Asia-NZ Foundation