Sid Pattni
Skin like water soaked wood (Part IV), 2025
Oil on canvas
40 x 30 in
101.6 x 76.2 cm
101.6 x 76.2 cm
This painting continues my interrogation of the complexities of identity, focusing on how diasporic communities like mine come to understand themselves through visual languages shaped by orientalist and colonial histories....
This painting continues my interrogation of the complexities of identity, focusing on how diasporic communities like mine come to understand themselves through visual languages shaped by orientalist and colonial histories. This painting is inspired by James Skinner, a British East India officer of Scottish-Indian heritage.
Whilst Skinner felt a genuine connection towards India, he maintained loyalty to the British and saw himself as part of the colonial project. He is celebrated for commissioning a large collection of "Company paintings," which were produced by local Indian artists under the patronage of British officers. By commissioning art that upheld Orientalist views, Skinner contributed to a visual narrative that simplified and exoticised India - a place his own mother came from. This distortion not only shaped how India was perceived externally, but also how generations of Indians like me came to internalise and inhabit Western projections of "Indian-ness."
Whilst Skinner felt a genuine connection towards India, he maintained loyalty to the British and saw himself as part of the colonial project. He is celebrated for commissioning a large collection of "Company paintings," which were produced by local Indian artists under the patronage of British officers. By commissioning art that upheld Orientalist views, Skinner contributed to a visual narrative that simplified and exoticised India - a place his own mother came from. This distortion not only shaped how India was perceived externally, but also how generations of Indians like me came to internalise and inhabit Western projections of "Indian-ness."
