The India gallery is made up of a series of painted studies which are responses to my understanding of urban and rural Indian culture. India’s second-biggest city Kolkata is a daily festival of human existence, simultaneously noble and squalid, cultured and desperate. It is a contradiction of wealth and poverty. My observations are based on all the signs of life in the densely populated chaotic streets of Kolkata. The brightly coloured buses, taxis, bikes, hand pulled and bike driven rickshaws ferry passengers between the overpopulated streets, the colourful market places are the inspiration behind these works. I have been fortunate to have access to a large portfolio of photographs of Kolkata taken by artist / photographer Kevin Lole. Kevin documented his time in Kolkata through photographs that illustrate the busyness of everyday life.