Biography
Akash Beharry is a painter and printmaker. His paintings are done mostly in oil paints and his prints are monotypes and reduction prints on paper. Born in Pointe-a-Pierre, Trinidad, Beharry was raised in Fyzabad, a small town in southern Trinidad. He received scholarships from both Adelphi University and The Petroleum Company of Trinidad and Tobago (PETROTRIN) in 2005, and was also a grant recipient of the Helen Baldwin scholarship fund. He earned his B.F.A. from Adelphi University, New York. Mr. Beharry works figuratively, drawing his inspiration from Hinduism which greatly influenced him as a child.
Artist Statement
For most of my childhood and teenage years, I painted Hindu iconographic images and portraits of deities. Like most religious art, the figures were idealized which I enjoyed recreating. After a while the faces became easier to paint but harder to relate to. They were not similar to those around me. My fascination with facial features in all variety from person to person and across age, race and gender especially of the people I know, is at the heart of my recent work. This series includes paintings in oils and acrylics on 12”x 12” mounted panels and canvas. In the course of translating the facial features and with close attention to detail, I develop a profound sense of deep familiarity and a superficially intimate relation with my subjects.
Through my paintings I am able to develop my childhood interest in identity and the familiar face as a place of stability and comfort. My art has become devotional and almost religious. Like the images of my past, the faces and people that I know now may someday seem unfamiliar. I strive to capture the familiar, the real, while they are. My portraits are not of gods but of people I know. They are not idealized but are painted the way they happen to be.
