Project: [History - Sikh Empire vs. East India Company]
Artist’s Statement – Project: Sikh Empire vs. East India Company
This project is a meditation on power, conquest, and the fragility of legacy, rendered through a combination of structure studies, original paintings, and animation.
The two sets of structure drawings serve as the foundation: Maharaja Ranjit Singh, envisioned with his emerald-green turban crowned by a black gemstone and crimson plume, armored in reflective steel and soft leather, is captured in pencil as front and profile studies. His figure radiates authority, neither corpulent nor ornamental, but sharpened by command. Opposite him, the archetype of the East India Company officer is presented in double-breasted black coat, mud-toned vest and trousers, feathered hat, and the unsheathed sword—his stance sketched in side and rear views, stripped of ornament to reveal the bare machinery of empire.
The three original paintings move from battlefield to palace to the private grief of daughters.
1. The Battlefield: Under heavy skies, cavalry charges across the dust-brown plain, horses raising clouds as endless ranks of soldiers loom against distant hills.
2. The Palace of Diamonds: Inside the gilded gates, the Koh-i-Noor looms impossibly large, its cold blue light corroding gold, while Ranjit Singh and his son stand silhouetted in shadow before the oppressive architecture.
3. The Daughters: At dusk, three sisters in red and green turbans collapse by the Ganges tributary, their faces buried in despair. Across the river, a solitary figure in white with a crimson feather watches, as smoke rises from chimneys behind the native domes.
The animation compresses these visions into movement: the advance of cavalry, the ominous shimmer of the diamond, the desperate run of a messenger woman, and finally the daughters transformed into a drifting vessel, carried across the river like offerings to history. Even in its fractured frames, the sequence speaks of inevitability: power gained, power corroded, power mourned.
Through this work, I aim not for documentary accuracy, but for emotional truth—the clash of empire and identity, the glitter of conquest against the quiet ruin left behind
