Patience in the Process
Priya Ahlawat, Early Morning at Café Américain, Amsterdam, oil, 21 x 14.
Priya Ahlawat’s thirst for knowledge and her extensive travels throughout Europe, North America, and Asia from a young age provide the well-heeled foundation from which her paintings are inspired and created. Born in India, Ahlawat began painting in oil at the precocious age of 5, eventually recreating large Renoirs and Van Goghs at the request of her art-loving mother.
While some artists live to paint, Ahlawat clearly paints to live. “I can’t live without painting,” she says earnestly. “If I’m going to do something, and I’m passionate about it, then I have to do it seriously. When I’m working on a painting, I don’t go out. I don’t talk to anyone. I just go into the zone. Painting is meditation for me.” Dedication, determination, and hard work are non-negotiables in Ahlawat’s artistic creed.
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- Priya Ahlawat, After Hours at Café Sperl, Vienna, oil, 14 x 21.
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- Priya Ahlawat, Caffe Florian’s Salon of Mirrors, Venice, oil, 18 x 18.
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- Priya Ahlawat, Confections and Coffee at the Demel, Vienna, oil, 21 x 14.
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- Priya Ahlawat, Early Morning at Café Central, Vienna, oil, 21 x 14.
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- Priya Ahlawat, Early Morning at Café Sperl, Vienna, oil, 14 x 21.
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- Priya Ahlawat, Morning at Palazzo Colonna, Rome, oil, 20 x 15.
Her commitment, as well as the pandemic, have changed the trajectory of her work over the past two years in ways that she couldn’t have foreseen. Pandemic travel restrictions left her feeling uninspired. However, a sabbatical from her orthodontics practice in Pittsburgh, PA, to visit family in India afforded her more time to paint. That additional time also gave the talented artist the opportunity to take a slower, more patient approach to her work, as encouraged by realist painter Daud Akhriev, one of her influential instructors. “When I painted fast, my style was more impressionistic, but after intentionally slowing down, my painting has become very detailed,” she says.
Ahlawat’s recent subjects—moody, dimly lit interiors of historic European cafés rich with texture and depth of field—are stellar testaments to the artistic shift. One standout, EARLY MORNING AT CAFÉ AMÉRICAIN, AMSTERDAM, depicts a favorite hangout that Ahlawat frequented with her paternal grandfather, who was a member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire. The painting was juried into 2021 exhibitions held by Oil Painters of America, National Oil & Acrylic Painters’ Society, and American Women Artists. “People often tell me that they feel as though they can just walk into one of my paintings, that they’re actually there,” Ahlawat notes. “That’s the biggest compliment.” —Beth Williams
representation
Christine Frechard Gallery, Pittsburgh, PA; www.priyaahlawat.com.
This story appeared in the February/March 2022 issue of Southwest Art magazine.