Meet the Sikh artist who is bringing back childhood memories through his comics
NEW DELHI: There is something to childhood memories. They keep coming back to us to remind us who we are and to keep us in touch with our real selves. Delhi based artist Dashmeet Singh also did something similar. He revisited those memories and that’s what his art is all about.
Whether it is your nani doing chumpy for you (rubbing oil onto your long hair and massaging it) or playing jhootei maiyya (a traditional Punjabi childhood rhyme, where the parents or grandparents sing to the kids while they act like a human swing carrying the children), they are some of the fondest memories you have of growing up. Recreating these very remembrances through comics on Instagram is Delhi based artist, Dashmeet Singh.
“I started sketching and painting in the 11th standard after seeing Sharan Art (Sharandeep Singh) on Facebook. I was amazed at how beautifully one can put their ideas and thoughts into paintings. I used to watch YouTube tutorials to learn how to sketch and paint. I would also ask my mother to teach me a few basics as she was into fine art,” Dashmeet said.
“I ended up losing my focus in studies and my grades were affected, after which I joined an Engineering college named Guru Tegh Bahadur Institute of Technology instead of pursuing my career in Medical Sciences.
“I got an opportunity to work with the NGO Akal Network, and made a few digital paintings for their Free Langar Sewa, they named it Stall On Wheels. The idea was to distribute the ‘langar of knowledge’ through the medium of art. As time passed by, I created a lot of paintings, majorly on Sikh narratives.”
Whether SikhPark inspired him, he said, “I have seen his work in my initial days, but no, SikhPark didn’t inspire me.”
“I always wanted to portray the events of my daily life through my artwork, but because I was more into paintings, it was not possible to create stuff on a daily basis so I started making quick rough sketches and making portraits of random people travelling in the metro to improve and manage my work speed,” he added.