AP: I have explored many mediums. We required a computer and I wanted to familiarize myself with the technology. It was not a prior decision to work with it. The experience was very different. With computer graphics, it's like an immediate shock. It hypnotises you. There was a great amount of absorption. I would be sitting at the computer for 4-5 hours at a stretch without realizing it.
There was no movement except for the eyes and fingers, unlike in painting, where there is so much physical labour involved. You put a stroke or line, then move around, come back to it. With a computer you have to be very precise, particularly with the colours. The precision is better, the colour more accurate.
I wanted to discover things for myself, use my own resources. I have the temperament of a painter. I do not want results. I watch what comes out and reject some of the works. The results surprise me. If it did not, it would bore me, let alone boring others! My friends see my work and tell me that they can do that kind of thing in a very short while, and that it should not take so long. I tell them that they are not painters and I am.
JB: What is your view of the prevalent trend of illustration passing off as art? Do you think this will last?
AP: Illustration as art will not last. At the most it will take one or two years, before it dies out. Look at the work of people like Laxman Shreshtha or Anjolie Ela Menon or even Jehangir Sabavalla. Art must be to please the mind and intellect, not the eyes. It must appeal to Manas and Buddhi. An artist should be interested in inner growth - Involution, not evolution- which only results in physical changes in the painting. The artist's sense of awareness and sensibility should grow.
The younger generation of artists is working for the export market. Gita Kapur writes for Europeans, not Indians. People like Raza and I belonged to the Paris school. I worked in Paris for a few years before I came back to India to rediscover it. When I left Paris, my friends told me it was foolish to leave when I already had a gallery. I told them what Gauguin said when he was going to Tahiti, and was asked why he was leaving the center of art. He said the center of art is in your brain.
JB: Do you think illustration passes off as art because the buyer is not discerning?
AP: Yes, not just in India, but in any other part of the world, the buyer is not discerning. A few years ago, if certain galleries in India backed an artist, his work sold well, but I don't think that is true any more. I tell young artists that they must continue to show their work as often as they can. Since I came from a business family, I was lucky that I didn't starve for my painting.
When I started painting, I did not sell a single piece of work for 15 years. When people asked me if I got depressed because of that, I said no, because I paint for myself, not others. If you work for others, you have to sell your time. It is better to have a job, even make tea or water to make a living, while you paint.
When people ask me how I price my work, I tell them that I price it higher than anybody can buy it. And it sells. I am not a factory and I sell rarely.
JB: Has Indian philosophy been a big influence on you?
AP: Indian philosophy and aesthetics have been a big influence on me as a person - the one who looks at the painting, but not on my painting. Both Indian philosophy and aesthetics has changed my vision. I grew up surrounded by European painting even as a child. Later I went to Paris and saw more of the same. I thought it was important to me to come back and re-discover India. I gained knowledge of Indian aesthetics through studying Indian art, architecture and philosophy. When people ask me how many hours a day I work, I tell them I am working all the time - reading, seeing. I learnt Sanskrit to gain knowledge and insight into the Indian perception of aesthetics. At present I am reading the 7th chapter of the Gita. Sanskrit is a language that is so concise and precise in it's form that every verse contains only the essential. Scholars have spent years researching not only the structure of the language, but also of each stanza or conjugation.
