Bhajan Plahe is a Melbourne-based artist working in Classical Realism, inspired by the beauty, emotion and technical discipline of the Old Masters.

Although painting had always mattered to her, it was only when she gave herself fully to art that she felt she had found the work she was meant to do.

Before beginning her formal training, Bhajan had never painted figures, people or portraits. Her experience had been in landscapes. In 2019, she travelled to Florence to study at the Angel Academy of Art, where she began with the foundations of drawing, progressing from pencil to charcoal before returning to Australia during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Since late 2020, Bhajan has continued her training through regular online lessons with Maestro Michael John Angel, founder of the Angel Academy. Under his guidance, she has developed a rigorous approach to drawing, design, value, colour and traditional oil-painting techniques in the style of the Old Masters.

Her work includes portraiture, figurative painting and surrealism, together with a growing interest in the metaphysical. She is drawn to emotion, symbolism and the inner presence of a subject, and to what may exist beyond outward appearances.

Bhajan chooses subjects that she feels deserve to be remembered and made eternal through her brush. Her work explores people, stories and ideas that carry emotional, historical or symbolic meaning, often touching on courage, inner transformation and the greater possibilities of human life.

Through painting, Bhajan seeks to move beyond outward appearance and towards something inward, vast and eternal.

For her, painting is more than the creation of a beautiful image. It is a way of honouring a life, preserving a story and giving visible form to something deeper than what can be seen on the surface.