Living away from my home country, one of the things I miss the most is hanging out with my friends from India. I chose to depict a specific friend and my memories with her. I met this girl named Heena, we lived in the same society. We met randomly and had no mutual friends before. It was during the Covid times when everyone still had to wear their masks on, I waved at her thinking she was someone I knew from school, but she wasn’t. And that’s how we met. We are like best friends. We used to go for morning walks and met almost everyday as we lived in the same residence. She gifted me so many things when I was going to leave India. I miss her a lot. And I feel kind of guilty for not getting her anything. So, I decided to make a painting which references our friendship.
Original reference photo
Since those walks are an important part of our friendship, I decided to search my phone gallery for memories of us walking. I found a bunch of shoefies (shoe + selfie) which we used to click most of the times we met for our walks. It is a first-person point of view of clicking the picture through a phone camera. I decided to change elements of the original reference picture as I wanted to put the figures as the focal point. I added the green ground to show that the figures are outdoors. The footwear and the clothing of the figures suggest different personalities and casual dressing respectively. They are standing in front of each other and clicking this picture which will be a happy memory in the future.
Since it is a long-distance friendship now, we don’t really meet for our walks anymore, at least not physically. The only option to meet each other is through video calls, which we occasionally do while going to work or college. To show this distance and the close friendship, I decided to paint one panel using traditional medium i.e. acrylic paints, and the other panel using digital medium i.e. digital painting on Adobe Fresco. The digital painting uses the same principles of how I would make a traditional painting. Although, a digital painting is not a traditional painting. It doesn’t have any physical texture to it. The digital painting printed on the panel is smooth and no hint of texture can be felt upon touching it. I used impasto technique to paint parts of the traditional painting.
Top panel: Digital painting print
Both panels are to be shown close together with the feet pointing at each other. Top panel is the digital painting printed on an MDF board. Bottom panel is the traditional acrylic painting. Even though both panels have visible textures, the top one is just an illusion while the bottom one has real physical texture on the panel. The mediums (traditional and digital) and the textures work as a metaphor for using technology as a medium to keep in touch with a friend who is on the other side of the world. Through this painting, I want to let her know that she is and always will be important to me.
Bottom panel: Traditional Acrylic painting
