FOR Dr Shivdev Singh Sidhu, home will always be Punjab. In 1971, This doctor had left his associate professorship with the PGI's paediatric department to work in the USA, but today he is back in his village in Nabha.

Dr Sidhu, who is a full-time artist now, says the passion of playing with colours had long been buried in his heart. "I, however, realised very late in life that I needed to break-free. So although I was 50 years of age, I decided to enrol myself with the Art Department at Lanchaster in California, where I lived." From being a consulting surgeon at various prestigious medical institutes in England, Paris and Welmington to a learner of art — this physician has come a long way. Now he is back to the place to which he belongs with his artistic samplings which will be on display from December 10 at a gallery in Sector 9, Chandigarh.

His works come across as plain and soothing, but carry strong undertones of nostalgia. The landscapes in water colours and the charcoal sketches of human figures, all form an idyllic ensemble. The majority of his works are landscapes, depicting various moods of nature. The detailing is quite appropriate, despite the use of water colour as the medium.

Explains Dr Sidhu, "I was always very fascinated by this medium. In this medium, you cannot undo a piece of art. So you learn from mistakes, if any. For my Lanchaster exhibition, I painted the entire Punjab in water colour. There were village scenes — showing farms, the bus stand and gurdwaras. The works were well received. But for all this I had to work very hard. "

That is not hard to believe for it must have taken a lot of time and hard work for a man of forceps to feel comfortable with the brush. "Believe me, learning to paint was as tough as studying surgery, and even tougher at times," says Dr Sidhu, recalling how he had been asked by the Art Department head to reconsider his decision. "She could not digest that a settled surgeon would leave everything for art, but I was determined to undergo the entire gamut of art courses," he adds. It was in 1996 that he finished training in drawing, designing, composition, water colours and graphics. Then he became a freelancer.

The actual learning process for Dr Sidhu started when he joined a group of outdoor painters (a concept quite rampant in the West). "Then I learnt to see life in stones and water and in everything that nature had created. It helped me evolve an entirely new vision of the ambience. I was soon exploring with a new form and a new feeling," he says.

Among other works which Dr Sidhu will display at the Art Folio inSector 9 will be portraits of live models — a woman busy knitting, a horseshoe-maker and some others. This collection will throw light on yet another practice in the West — that of inviting models to the studio and painting them in six to seven sittings.

Then there are charcoal sketches rife with directness and immense detailing. The artist displays an entire range of nudes which he has drawn over the years. The works are beautiful in the way they omit everything that is obvious, reminding one of Michaelangelo’s statement: "Beauty is in the elimination of all superfluous." Laughs the surgeon, "I don't know if they are beautiful. All I know is that I am comfortable with this kind of sketching and the advantage that I have is that I am familiar with the human anatomy. So I know the mechanics of all curves in the body." Moreover, the idea is to grasp the minutest of details.

Dr Sidhu has been travelling to the interiors of Punjab, Haryana, and Himachal to get an insight into the folk life of all states. He will shortly be going to Rajasthan for this purpose. Says the artist, "I want to give back whatever I got from the region. I feel so deeply involved when I see the village life of any area that I cannot help registering it in my mind. Often I capture the moments in my camera to reproduce them later on the canvas."