Sid Pattni’s portraits unpack the internalised colonial gaze

The above portrait depicts James Skinner (1778-1841), a British officer of Scottish-Indian heritage. It’s part of Sid Pattni’s series of paintings: A Knot in the Thread. “Skinner felt a genuine connection towards India, but he maintained loyalty to the British and saw himself as part of the colonial project,” explains the Melbourne-based artist. The officer was one of the leading patrons of Delhi artists, and commissioned a large collection of paintings. “By commissioning art that upheld Orientalist views, he contributed to a visual narrative that simplified and exoticised India – a place his own mother came from,” Sid comments.

In his own painting, the artist erases James Skinner’s face to signal this paradox of the internalised colonial gaze: “The struggle of belonging to two worlds but ultimately being complicit in the colonial project.” In doing so, the painting questions identity when a person is both complicit in, and shaped by, an oppressive system. “This distortion not only shaped how India was perceived externally, but also how generations of Indians, like me, came to internalise and inhabit Western projections of ‘Indian-ness’,” he says.

Born in London, Sid grew up in Kenya and moved to Australia when he was 13. “Art was always a constant presence,” he says. “I was raised in an environment that encouraged exploration and play, which naturally led me to various forms of storytelling – whether through music or painting.” It wasn’t until later that he understood art as more than an expressive medium. “It became a means of navigating and reconciling the complexities of identity and history. This realisation marked a shift in my practice and prompted a deeper interrogation of my experiences as a first-generation Indian migrant and how that intersected with broader colonial histories.”

His work now explores how diasporic communities understand themselves through visual languages shaped by colonial histories. Many colonial paintings were used as tools of power. “They weren’t just paintings; they were declarations of dominance, reinforcing hierarchies of race, class and power,” says Sid. “By taking that visual language and repurposing it, I’m questioning what those images meant then and what they mean now.”

For Sid, these artworks aren’t about historical accuracy, but about embracing “getting it wrong” to better reflect the present moment. Through this process of reinterpreting visual narratives, he is reclaiming space, shifting the story from one of imposition to self-definition. Ultimately, he hopes the work encourages viewers to see how history and identity are not fixed truths. “For those who see themselves in these works – who understand the experience of being between cultures – I hope it offers a sense of recognition, of seeing something that speaks to the complexity of that in-between space,” he ends.