D S Rane (Dattaprasad)

D S Rane (Dattaprasad) was born in 1952 at village Talera in the Konkan district of south- western India. Interestingly, after getting his art qualifications, Rane went back to his village and opened up a restaurant. But he made such a mess of it, that his incensed father told him to leave everything and go back to the city. From being a hotelier to wielding a paintbrush, it has been a long journey for him. "I have not been influenced by any teacher. What I am today, I have myself shaped over the years," says the 49-year-old artist who lives in Mumbai and teaches art in a school. A watercolorist, there is a sense of serenity and thoughtfulness that permeates most of his canvasses. Rane is perhaps one of the few painters of his generation who can claim a complete mastery over the orchestration of colour and texture, feels art critic Dayanand Nadkarni. The outline of human forms that he projects glow in a kind of misty light. "It is quite reflective of the light in humble Konkan dwellings, especially when sunlight seeps through the apertures of the tiled roofs," says the artist.