From Kashmir to Kenya
Lalit Gupta
Over the past few decades, several visual artists from Jammu and Kashmir have moved beyond the region, seeking a wider reach and new opportunities. Some of the prominent veterans of the modernist generation were Gulam Rasool Santosh and Kishori Kaul. In the generations that followed, names like Veerji Munshi, Amit Salthia, Sunanda Khajuria, Chander Shekhar, Sonu Agarwal and Neeraj Bakshi have emerged as important voices in the contemporary art landscape.
But among them, Neeraj Bakshi stands apart-exiled from Kashmir as a young man, he not only made his place as a successful painter known for luminous small-format works, but also for the unique and unexpected path he has chosen.
Driven by his inner calling, Bakshi left behind the art circuits of Delhi, where he had built a strong reputation, and ventured beyond the familiar. He crossed continents to answer the pull of the African Savannah, where he has since set up his art studio in Nairobi.
The move surprised many in the contemporary art world. But for Bakshi, it was more like a pilgrimage to a place which, thanks to Inlkas Foundation scholarship, has been pulling him back since his life-changing sojourn in 1999 to Maasai Mara, the national game reserve in Kenya. Here, he immersed himself in Africa’s artistic heritage and wild beauty. The experience transformed his art, fusing personal history with ecological consciousness.
For Neeraj Bakshi, the pull for Africa was due to the film Out of Africa-the classic film starring Meryl Streep and Robert Redford, which he, as a child, saw with his father in the Broadway Cinema in Srinagar. The vast African landscapes left a lasting impression. Later, he relished Hemingway’s stories, especially The Snows of Kilimanjaro and Green Hills of Africa, which deepened his emotional and imaginative connection to the continent.
In 1999, after his stay in Kenya, Neeraj returned home with a souvenir that would become a spiritual guide: Robert Vavra’s A Tent with a View: An Intimate African Experience. “This book deepened my bond with Africa,” he says. “At Maasia Mara, for the first time I could see man and animal sharing the same world in a complete symbiosis”. I made friends with the felines of the species and rendered them with emotion.”
For Neeraj Bakshi, who migrated along with his family from Anantnag during the 1990 Kashmiri Pandit exodus. The harrowing and disorienting trauma of displacement, and the memory of Kashmir’s tranquil highlands, left an indelible mark.
He finished the bachelor course of painting, from Jammu University. Where his art began to take shape-rooted in themes of loss, memory, and longing. “From torment emerged tenderness. From loss, a luminous, empathetic vision”.
The life-altering trip to Maasi Mara served as a rupture and rebirth. “The animal world became my metaphor – potent symbols of resilience, coexistence, and spiritual equilibrium, he says. The creatures that once lived in his childhood imagination now populated his canvas-infused with memory, myth, and meaning”.
Leopards, cheetahs, lions, and house cats began to populate his canvas, not as symbols of exoticism but as emotional companions-representatives of the artist’s inner wilderness.
“Bakshi’s love for animals is not a fashionable pose-it is a philosophy, notes one art writer. “His art speaks to the interdependence of humans, animals, and the environment”.
“Over the last 25 years, he has explored the mystical, mythological, and symbolic connections between species in diverse cultures-particularly Egyptian, African, and Indian”.
In Bakshi’s art world, the boundaries between human and animal blur. His art is a conversation – between species, between continents, between the past and what lies ahead. The animals are metaphors, yes, but they are also messengers. They speak in silence, in stillness, and in colour.
“His works are an act of communion -not with Africa or Kashmir alone, but with the universal truth that all creatures have the same sky over them, the same pain in their hearts, and the same peace in their dreams”.
Neeraj Bakshi was one of the participating artists in the exhibition titled “Modern and Contemporary Artists of Jammu and Kashmir” held at Kala Kendra, Jammu, in March 2025, as part of the 3rd Edition of Tawi Festival.
Speaking of his contribution, celebrated art critic Nirupama Dutt remarked: ” His love for the feline creatures finds its way onto his canvases, and the zebras, rhinos and giraffes of Nairobi have travelled with him to the art galleries and homes in India to be celebrated with accolades and awards”
Neeraj Bakshi’s journey – from the valley of Kashmir to the plains of Kenya – is a rare and radiant one. His art reminds us that exile and belonging are not always opposites. Sometimes, in losing a home, one finds a horizon. And in painting animals, one rediscovers humanity.
Follow our WhatsApp channel
