Servant of Akal Purakh Sahib, King of Sikh Art™
Bhagat Singh Bedi uses his gift to create works of art that inspire and uplift the soul. His paintings connect us to our ancient heritage by telling stories of our ancestors in vivid colours.
A Sikh strives to be a Warrior-Saint and Bhagat’s sikh art embodies and emphasizes those qualities of Bir Ras and Sant Ras, The Essence of Warriors and Saints™.
Bhagat is a servant of Akal Purakh Sahib. He meditates and paints under the guidance of this Timeless Spirit, to bring well-being to the Sikh community world-wide. This frees him up and sets him apart from the generic, traditional sikh art of Punjab, those repetitive copies of Sobha Singh ji’s and Kirpal Singh ji’s sikh art.
Even though Bhagat considers Sobha Singh ji and Kirpal Singh ji as his Ustaad jis, teachers, their sikh artwork depicting sikh gurus and sikh warriors has been poorly copied ad nauseum and has bogged down the sikh art tradition of Punjab. Bhagat has revived this tradition and has brought it to a whole new level!
Bhagat paints Gods, Gurus and Guardians™ with a passion!
In addition to Sikh history and Punjabi paintings, SikhiArt.com also showcases Bhagat’s Hindu Paintings, images of the Divine Cosmic Being as described in many religions of India, and Bhagat’s Fantasy Art, images of fierce Sikh warriors with massive turbans.
As Bhagat grew spiritually and began to understand the depth of spiritual and mythological realms, he also began to research and create Hindu paintings. The diverse images of Gods and their stories, inspired Bhagat to paint Hindu Art! Gallery of Hindu Art »
Meanwhile, Bhagat had also secretly been working away on many Fantasy paintings inspired by Sikh aesthetics. These include images of powerful warriors wearing turbans of epic proportions! Gallery of Sikh Fantasy Art »
Bio
A self-taught artist and a student of science, Bhagat Singh Bedi’s humble origins were in Ludhiana, Punjab. He moved to Canada when he was very young. After he moved to Canada, he immediately got involved in Gurudwara activities, and Gurmat camps. In the Gurudwara, Bhagat would read the many blood filled pages of Sikh history (packed in thin paperbacks), and became interested in Sikh history and philosophy.
At the Gurudwara, he was asked to paint some of those pages by the principal of the academy. Without prior training, the young boy got to work. He brought home many of the paperbacks he read, and started to mimic the historical works published in them; works of Sikh artists like Sobha Singh ji, Kirpal Singh ji, Devender Singh ji and Mehar Singh ji. While at home he studied Sikh artists, in high school, he studied art history, the Old Masters and Canadian artists like Lauren Harris from the Group of Seven.
Later in high school, after stumbling upon the Sarbloh Warriors website (in one of his endless google searches), he joined the team and started doing concept art for the game. His job at Sarbloh Warriors required him to learn digital painting, and so he did. Feeling that Sikhs are underrepresented in the media, Bhagat took the responsibility of putting Sikhs out there, and worked on his Sikh Mutants storyline and characters.
Having an interest in sciences, Bhagat enrolled in the Biology program in university. As his painting interests became his passion, and as his skills as as artist developed, things at Sarbloh Warriors became quiet. However, the research he had done for the game, left an even stronger feeling in him than before. He decided it was time to paint the same history that the game was based on; the same history that he once painted when he was younger.
I believe Sikh history is awesome; it needs to be painted with skill and passion. This is my attempt to increase the well-being of Sikhs all over the world.
My connection with Sikh History is very emotional since a lot of events are filled with such energy that they have the power to excite me or move me to tears. My earlier work was about that excitement in the form of a visceral adrenaline rush that Sikh Martyrs felt when they charged into battle, and sacrificed their lives. In my later work, I painted several paintings with teary eyes. Immersed in meditation, I painted the spiritual experiences of Sikh Saints.
A Sikh strives to be a Warrior-Saint and my work embodies and emphasizes those qualities of Bir Ras and Sant Ras, Warrior Essence and Saint Essence.
– Bhagat Singh Bedi