Vijaybhai

I was fond of painting from childhood. I was encouraged by famous artist Sudhir Khastagir to join Fine Arts College at Tagore’s university at Santiniketan. But after some months I was shifted to graduate school due to family compulsions. During seven years at Santiniketan I was closely associated with Art and artists. I did many paintings and sculptures when I was there. Only few of those works remain with me now.

I lost touch with art after entering a long academic career. After studying literature (M.A., Visva Bharati) and anthropology (M.A., Ph.D. Lucknow University), I specialised in Medical Sociology (D.Sc. Johns Hopkins University). I spent time whole-heartedly for research and teaching at five different universities. I retired as Professor of sociology in 1994.

Just before retirement I started playing with art digitally as well as on canvas but focussed more on digital medium.

For someone who had close encounters with fine art at a young age, coming back to painting on full time basis was an enjoyable homecoming. Exposure to the depth, variety and complexity of fine art on the internet has been overwhelming. After ten years of intensive involvement with digital fine art I have now started relating it directly to painting on canvas in mixed media.

Art is not in the medium or tools; it is in the mind and heart -- if it is there it will show. The artist and philosopher Larry Bloch said, “the goal of every artist is to become fluent enough with the media to transcend it. At some point you pass from playing the piano to playing music." An art critic, Jarvis, says “Art is not about the tools used to make it; but in the organization of color, line, form, composition, rhythm and the interplay of all these in support of the subject matter or intent of the work itself. These are the basic and well-established tenets of visual art.”

I am 71 years old male from India. I was fond of painting in my childhood. I had exposure to painting and sculpture in my youth at Tagore’s university in Bengal. But I lost touch with painting during my academic career.

Towards the end of my academic career I revived my interest in art. For someone who had close encounters with fine art at a young age, coming back to painting was enjoyable homecoming- dream come true. For some years I played with elementary graphics software. From 1996 I started creating and saving simple compositions. In August 2002 I held two one-man exhibitions in Hyderabad and some feature articles have appeared in local newspapers. I have done about 500 compositions by now. Visit my website at:

I describe myself as ‘original fine art painter of digital medium’. I believe digital medium is a wholesome medium in its own right. Software does help in bringing out the visions more boldly. Maintaining originality and artistic quality in digital art requires controlled or disciplined use of software tools.

I find digital medium very effective in giving shape to images and ideas. Creativity and imagination is not bound by any medium. The artistic quality is a unique combination of forms, colours, lines, strokes and composition through which artist gives shape to his ideas and expressions. The originality and creativity of expression is achievable on digital canvas. I believe that art is not in the medium; it is in the mind and heart – if it there, it will show. In some respects, the digital medium is more rich and flexible.

Now, almost 40 years later Vijay Bhai is trying to fulfill his dream. Those early experiences naturally help him in visualising and applying thoughts in a new medium. Though computer is just a machine, for Vijay Bhai it is something more than that. For him it is not just moving the mouse and pressing the buttons to dabble and find something accidentally and automatically. His works are of clear-cut vision. A vision well planned and structured, derived out of great inner need, an internal urge. The colour, form, structure, composition - the prerequisites of a painting - find saturation in the works of Vijay Bhai.

In 1992 computer became his friend and a companion. As a humble beginner doodling with MS Word Art, and then using Paintbrush, he started his first works. In those days there was no facility for saving compositions in the Image software. What ever he doodled got deleted. He just enjoyed doing and deleting.

Vijay Bhai is a self-taught artist and a self-taught computer specialist. He learnt graphics and packages connected with art and design, on his own - by trial and error method. His sole purpose was to explore the inner self. Making use of the digital media - he went in depth searching different tools and effects, facing different problems and finding different solutions.

Around 1997-98 he started working with Paintshop Pro 4. In 1999 he found himself comfortable in the package Painter-Classic in which he could feel the brushstrokes and blends of colour. He also found that Coral Draw is useful in reorganising the images he worked with. Now, he is equally good at handling packages such as Illustrator, Freehand-7, Photoshop-5 and Photopaint-9.

In the process of learning and search, Vijay Bhai's works are not so consistent. Since he tried different possibilities of the media his works appear to speak many languages. In the beginning, like any other beginner, he was not sure of his end product. But constantly working and understanding Vijay Bhai develops his work instantly and intuitively, or by applying right tools at the right place. The basic design problems such as line, colour, form, shape, texture, and the rest are solved in the later day works. Image, treatment, application wise the body of works he has done can be categorised into 4 to 5 series, series of experiments with multi-dimensional tools available.

He works with human figures, landscapes and with abstract forms sometimes geometric and sometimes organic, but he is quite authentic when uses the fog and mist effect. It may be because he had a deep appreciation for the watercolours of Gaganedranath Tagore.

His works reveal most personal feelings and subtle personality traits."

Nemiraj Shetty, Art Historian, Artist, Curator
Hyderabad, May 2002