Feroz Khan

BORN
1978 New Delhi

EDUCATION QUALIFICATIONS
Self-Taught Artist

SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2009 Galerie Waterton, Singapore in collaboration with HKFineart Gallery
2008 The Incredible Everyday-ness of Being, Epicenter, Gurgaon, Galerie Romain Rolland, Alliance Francaise New Delhi
2006 Tales of Ordinary People, Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi
2004 Krishna Collection Art Gallery, New Delhi

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2010 Galerie Waterton, Singapore
2009 The Faraway Tree, Chennai
2009 Heritage School, Gurgaon
2007 Heritage School, Gurgaon

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Born in 1978 in Delhi, Feroz Khan has been working as an artist since he graduated. He has not received any formal art training but has gained experience and exposure first through his father, Ibrahim, a banner painter, and subsequently through renowned artist Manjit Bawa, with whom he trained for fourteen years.

Armed with a paintbrush and a zeal to fill blank canvases with the colors of life, Khan spent his time under Bawa's tutelage trying his hand at various mediums, genres, and processes. Similarly, he tried a variety of subjects, from studies of European masters to layered and textured works popular with his contemporaries. Eventually, he found solace in oils and began to focus his attention on the subjects he saw around him every day. Drawing inspiration from real life and pouring his soul into each canvas, he painted images of old men and women, rickshaw pullers, beggars, children, and various street vendors, inhabitants of the poorest neighborhoods of the city.

Speaking of Bawa's influence on his style, Khan notes, Being respectful of my teacher's academic style of figuration, I soon convinced my guru of my skill with the brush and my ability to create naturalistic human and animal forms, avoiding explicit linear delineation, while projecting solid masses. Furthermore, I followed the lead of my Sufi-inspired guru to imagine the serene ambiance surrounding scenes such as that of a young mahout sitting on my contemplative and unhurried elephant or, as in another simple yet lively oil painting, the endearing relationship between a small boy and his pet lamb; these figurative works evoke perfect harmony and relaxed poise. In the end, one discovers a kind of spiritual connection between man and animals (and also with the inanimate elements that are used to earn a living but are treated with love and care).

Khan's first solo exhibition of his work was held at the Krishna Collection Art Gallery in New Delhi in 2004, and he has since shown his work at the Lalit Kala Akademi in New Delhi in 2006, at the Galerie Romain Roland in New Delhi and Epicentre in Gurgaon in 2008, and at Galerie Waterton and the HK Fine Art Gallery in Singapore in 2009. He has also participated in several group exhibitions in India and abroad. The artist lives and works in New Delhi.

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