‘Well, what can I say?’ he begins. ‘There’s a time in every artist’s life when it may not be apparent that he’s doing anything different. That might even be true on the surface. He is still doing what he has been doing before but that could be just to keep his hand in while new ideas stir within him. They take time to form. It’s like soil. After you’ve had a few good harvests, you must let it lie fallow for it to regain its strength. A critic might see this fallow period as a comfort zone that the artist is trapped in. It is a time when even the artist might secretly wonder if he has dried up. Finished. But he’s also wary of doing something “new” to quell his doubts. What is new? The new is not the novel. The new is something fresh and true. Something that connects the artist’s being with the being of the world outside. These are complicated processes which the artist himself doesn’t fully understand.’

‘Your fallow period, as you call it, has lasted about ten years. That’s a long time. During this period are there links in your work to events in your personal life?’

‘Only to the extent that everything the artist does relates in some way to what’s going on in his life and in the world at large. Those are the sources he draws upon. But the truth of a painting doesn’t lie in biographical detail. The artist himself isn’t conscious where his ideas come from. A series of purely aesthetic concerns comes into play in the very act of painting, carrying the work further and further away from the personal event that might have triggered it. If you go hunting after that personal event, you lose the work.’

‘With your latest work, you appear to have moved out of your alleged comfort zone. Do you agree? And if so, can you say what accounts for the shift?’

‘No, I can’t. Not with any certitude. I am not at a sufficient distance from my present work to see it objectively and explain what is happening or why it is happening.’

‘But do you at least feel that this is the beginning of a new period in your work?’

‘Yes, you might say it is. I had never used black in my work. One day it accidentally entered a painting I was contemplating. I wasn’t sure for a long time whether I wanted to accept its presence or reject it. When I decided to accept it, I realized I had entered another world. The world of black.’ Ashesh presses his finger tips together. ‘I don’t think I’ve come out of it yet.’