Paul Rajasekhar

ALPENA ­– Thunder Bay Arts Featured Artist for March and April 2021 is Paul Rajasekhar.

His artwork is on display at the TBA Gallery, 127 W. Chisholm St., Alpena.

“Keeping in compliance with COVID-19 guidelines, there will not be a reception for Paul,” a TBA press release explained. “His amazing work will be on display at the Thunder Bay Arts Gallery.”

Gallery hours are Wednesday through Saturday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. for the month of March and Monday through Saturday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. for the month of April. The public is always welcome to visit the gallery, which features the work of many local artists on display and for sale.

Rajasekhar provided the artist bio below.

“I wrote, painted works of art, and played a lot of cricket while in med school in India. In one of my senior years of med school, I half-heartedly entered a painting of mine into the ‘All India Inter-Medical Art Contest’ in New Delhi, India.

“I didn’t think of it again until they told me my piece, ‘Painter’s Grandmother,’ a portrait of my grandmother which I had done, a’la ‘Whistler’s Mother,’ won the second prize, out of all the works from all of India! The same painting won first prize when entered in another contest in my own city of birth.

“That frisky flow of art would have continued but for my medical career which moved to the USA and eventually to Alpena, Michigan, where the furious pace of practicing Internal Medicine, Psychiatry and Addictionology inevitably slowed it down. I still managed to paint when I had the time, sometimes working late into the wee hours of the morning.

“Now I’m beginning to realize that I am, after all, an artist first and a doctor later. So it pleases me immensely that TBA asked me to be their ‘featured artist.’

“May my pieces instill a contemplative experience we all need during these troubled times, while they also convey a warmly somber Lenten theme.”