Basant Portraits

Black 2.0 paint on stainless steel with mirror finish and emergency blankets
3’ x 3’ (each painting)
2018 -2020

Focusing on the children that I’ve worked with at US/Mexico border and Pakistan/Afghanistan border, I created abstract portraits that demand distance for clear visibility. Obscuring the images to a blown-up passport picture format and applying deepest black as an alternative to the black used on stealth bombers (so they cannot be detected by radar) on an expensive reflective stainless-steel surface, I am confronting the viewer in the present environment to reflect upon the future.

This project is supported by the Guggenheim fellowship. Special thanks to Stoneleaf Retreat for allowing the time and space to start this new body of work.