Balraj Khanna is an influential Indian artist whose works are a celebration of the act of creating...

Movement, feeling and atmosphere are very important to Balraj Khanna’s artwork. He hopes that his paintings can lift or even liberate your mood.

Balraj was born in Punjab, India in 1940. He moved to England when he was 25, began showing his artwork immediately and hasn’t stopped yet. Balraj is now 70 and enjoying seeing his work in solo retrospectives and group exhibitions around the world. We have artworks in the Paintings in Hospitals collection that span his career from 1969 – 2010.

Balraj Khanna, Birth of a Body, 1977. Part of the Paintings in Hospitals collection.

In his studio, Balraj enjoys being surrounded by his artwork. His inspiration comes from things he loves: his family and friends, nature, childhood memories, literature and art history. His paintings are gloriously engaging. There are subtle colours and changing tones in the background. He achieves this through his technique of mixing ground sand into the canvas primer (a substance used to prepare the canvas surface for painting). And on top, little scenes and objects seem to float. The shapes, toys or puppets are surreal, but also familiar.

Balraj explains that he likes to think of things ‘in flux, with a push and pull’. The floating objects are magically drawn to one another for you to look on. His compositions ask you to try to observe in a new or different way. He asks: “what do you see here?”

See more from the Paintings in Hospitals art collection...