Om Prakash at World Wide Art Gallery, New York

Om Prakash is an artist of many talents – he infuses his musical, academic and creative passions into his own version of aesthetic. As a sitar player, a teacher and an artist, Prakash allows his lifelong interests to filter into his paintings as visual components in a network or forms. Prakash is primarily known for his geometric Mandalas containing remarkable colour combinations which sparkle with a cultural mysticism. Between the years of 1986 and 1989, Prakash completed a group of Mandalas which anchored his presence in the art world as a master of aesthetic spirit. He transformed basic principles of balance in nature to an essay in abstraction for each painting was a structured narrative symbols. It was not until 1991 that Prakash explored non-geometric forms. Prakash’s use of colour is perhaps a distant cousin of Rothko’s. But where Rothko invoked a certain glorious colour environment, Prakash just paints colours from a personal experience and perhaps with more humble intentions. Also exhibited were several water colours which functioned as subtle illustrations of Prakash’s ‘vision’ rather than renditions of a sometimes overly romanticised landscape. They were not imbued with an awe-inspiring symbolism. With this group of water colours, it is evident that Prakash’s strength lies in his ability to let the viewer simmer with recollections of his intense colour transmissions.

Kathleen Finley Magnan, Asian Art News, Honkong, May-June 1994