I met this man outside of a temple in India where he was asking for alms. I could not stop looking at him and he kept motioning me over. I asked through signs if I could take his photo and he said "yes". As I photographed him, he never for one instant made eye contact with me and there was no spark coming from his eyes. My 4 year old son came over to join me and some time after we walked away said, "Daddy he is broken. What happened to him?"
An artist learns many ways to show spark and light in the human eye, but none of that would help with this painting. It needed the opposite. During the time I painted this man I began to feel that it wasn't a case where there was no spark of life, but like many Hindus, he was withdrawing himself from this world and preparing to enter the next. Finding him at the temple was no accident.
I met this man outside of a temple in India where he was asking for alms. I could not stop looking at him and he kept motioning me over. I asked through signs if I could take his photo and he said "yes". As I photographed him, he never for one instant made eye contact with me and there was no spark coming from his eyes. My 4 year old son came over to join me and some time after we walked away said, "Daddy he is broken. What happened to him?"
An artist learns many ways to show spark and light in the human eye, but none of that would help with this painting. It needed the opposite. During the time I painted this man I began to feel that it wasn't a case where there was no spark of life, but like many Hindus, he was withdrawing himself from this world and preparing to enter the next. Finding him at the temple was no accident.