The lush green Valley of Kashmir with its rich nature and beautiful landscapes disturbed by terrorism and bloodshed. There was one-man Late Bansi Parimu, an environmentalist and a self-taught painter who put it all painstakingly and beautifully on canvas.

Bansi Parimu was a self-made and self-taught artist, one of the very few painters that the valley of Srinagar has thrown up this century. He had a distinctive and individualistic style of ‘Abstract landscapes” which earned him a special place in the world of contemporary Indian Art. He had come a long way from the earlier realistic watercolours that had once thrilled him. More organic than geometrical, the modern abstractionism of his work was marked by his strong association with the valley, which remained the inspiration of his creativity right up to his death. Particularly enchanting was his use of fine gauze overlays, calligraphic and arabesque at times, which seemed to capture the changing pattern of light in the Himalayan pastures. His contribution as a sculptor, writer and environmentalist were also significant.

Bansi Parimu was one of the victims of the Kashmir turmoil due to which he had to leave his Srinagar home and come to Delhi. He could not reconcile with his forced departure from the valley of Kashmir. Deprived of his home, its life and culture – he felt rootless and was haunted by memories of the lost paradise. In an alien city like Delhi, with unbearable summers, his physical ailments and mental agony further accelerated. Thus, died Bansi Parimu, a refugee artist with a scar deep in his heart.

Known for his abstract paintings, the beautiful colours of Kashmir transformed on to the canvas. After the breakout of terrorist activity in Kashmir, Bansi Parimu did figurative abstract paintings, which displayed the agony of Kashmir. His painting ‘Smeared Snows’ is a description of how the snow-clad mountains were bleeding. Depicting the Kashmir problem is also his painting ‘Red Knows No Creed’ through which he moralised that blood knows no creed and whatever be the caste there was suffering all around. ‘Exodus I’ and ‘Exodus II’ are figurative paintings of how people in Kashmir were fleeing the city.