CHICAGO THEATRE

I remember the chill of freshman year, leaning out my dorm with a cigarette in hand, watching the Chicago skyline blur into a haze of gray and steel. Every few minutes, a siren would cut through the air- a sound that, to me, became the city’s own jagged heartbeat. In this painting, I took those cold Chicago nights and set them on fire with the colors of home. I reimagined the street as a stage for a Bollywood climax; there’s a bride bolting down the alley toward the Red Line, escaping a fate she didn’t choose, while a warrior elephant lumbers through the intersection like it owns the pavement. I wanted to see the Mask and the Peaky Blinders riding alongside a loud-horned Indian truck, mixing the pop culture that raised me with the grit of the sidewalk I stood on. It’s a collision of the loud, dusty streets of India and the howling wind of the red line train—a visual record of me trying to find my roots while standing in a place that felt worlds away.