BASUKI DAS GUPTA’S STUNNING FOUR-PANEL COMMISSIONED PAINTING
Over the past year, navigating COVID-19 as a gallery owner has been both interesting and challenging in many ways. One of the more surprising outcomes has been an increase in demand for commissioned paintings. In this blog, I share with you a very interesting commission project we recently did with contemporary artist Basuki Das Gupta.
A client approached Laasya Art to commission a painting for a wall in their study, which connects to a great room that includes the living and dining rooms. As the client frequently takes work meetings in the study, they noted that the painting should not feel representative of a certain country, culture or religion.
They also specified that the colors of the painting should not be dramatic or overpowering, as the existing color palette of the room was very soft with grey, cream and gold.
Whenever I meet with clients regarding a potential commission, I always present a range of paintings and artists to better identify what themes and styles speak to them. In this initial phase, the client naturally leaned towards the texture and subject matter of Basuki Das Gupta’s work. We did consider other artists but invariably came back to Basuki. The client placed a lot of trust in me as a gallerist and in Basuki as an artist and gave us a lot of creative freedom and that helped tremendously.
Sometimes, a client’s request for a customized original painting can challenge the artist to work in new formats and inspire an idea they may not have pursued otherwise, resulting in some of their best work. And that’s exactly what happened with this four paneled painting.
Basuki and I collaborated very closely on this commission, and we experimented with multiple ideas initially as shown above. On the right, a smaller painting by Basuki Das Gupta ultimately inspired the direction for the commission and acted as the ‘benchmark’ reference.
We wanted a high impact work that would hold its own in the client’s open-concept living room, so we also decided that four panels, rather than one large canvas, would fill the study’s wall without feeling ‘heavy’ or dominating the space.
During the initial painting stages, however, we realized that the simple black and white palette was not satisfying our expectations. The ‘benchmark’ painting that inspired our concept was quite small, and the composition did not feel balanced on a larger scale.
Since the clients and I were simultaneously working on another commissioned painting for the opposite side of the great room, I suggested that Basuki create a visual dialogue between the two artworks by incorporating green and hints of yellow. After he introduced these additional colors to the panels, he also painted in more red flowers, creating the dramatic effect that the flowers are gently falling from the sky.
At the last stage, the clients also wanted the painting to have a hidden personal connection to their family. They asked if Basuki could add the names of their children in a discrete way, and of course he was delighted to do so. I thought this was a very special and touching idea, and I am sure the family will treasure this painting for years to come.
The clients were absolutely delighted with the final result. They wrote, “In a world of Zoom, where we are constantly evaluating people’s backgrounds, we love having such a classy meditative piece as our background. The color palette and the detailed artistry gives a true Zen feeling for us in our office.”
If you are curious about commissioning your own custom painting by a leading Indian artist or would like to inquire about paintings for sale by Basuki Das Gupta, please get in touch at +1 650-770-9088 or info@laasyaart.com.
— Sonia Nayyar Patwardhan
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