Brief note about the Artist : To begin with, I am an artist in every sense of the word. With a professional degree from Santiniketan, Viswa Bharati University in 2003, I went on to complete my post-graduation in Film Design from the National Institute of Design, Ahemdabad in 2006.
While growing up, I was lucky to have travelled around the country, seeing a bit of the many states of the country. Currently, however, I am based out of Mumbai. As for my work, it primarily revolves around the hidden realities of human relationships, the vulnerabilities of emotions, and the various struggles that constitute life. My education in film design informs my storytelling technique, allowing me to express complex plots in simple ways. My everyday visual experiences and regular involvements across various situations and circumstances shape the artistic imagery I convey through my paintings.
One can say I try to document the fleeting emotions that run through us every day, in different ways. The whole gamut of feelings, the way I perceive and interpret it, is represented in a symbolic and stylistic manner on my canvases. I wish for my viewers to traverse the extent of my canvases and recreate their understandings of them in their own way. The viewer must dive into what I express through colour and motifs, and try to discover their own hidden stories from them. Outside of painting, I also delve into animation and short films. I’ve produced eight short animation films so far, and I’m happy to share a few of these have fetched awards at major national and international film festivals. I’d be delighted to share more details about the same should you wish to know…
Brief note about the exhibition:
“Missing - Recalling Disappeared Moments” is about my understanding, absorption and articulation of all those passing moments and memories that take birth in our everyday lives… The human story is layered with struggle at every step of life… There are moments of joy, there are spans of sadness, but within it all, we continue to exist. At times, I feel we are surviving in an aquarium, a world that looks attractive to those who view it from the outside, yet one that is so vulnerable and prone to scrutiny. In our attempts to conquer our desires and quest for immense luxuries, in search of realising the ‘bigger picture’, we miss the small, insignificant actions and moments, which actually hold the key to true bliss of life. These innocent little moments become memories, but rather than curating these memories, we end up letting them go. Unending horizons, rich with the golden hues of the sun – her rising and setting, the dulcet movement of a moneyplant growing on a window sill, the sensuous, rhythmic drips of raindrops on a drape of water… All of these splendid moments disappear somewhere in the desert of our routine, hectic lives. When we dream, all these moments, all the curated memories – whatever we have of them – come alive, where they meet and greet each other on an open stage, which is the canvas of our minds. These moments and memories embrace each other, and they weave a vivid picture that gives an insight into our conscious and subconscious being. This is the place where we find what we have lost.
My work delves into the gaps of these lost moments and memories, trying to hold them up against the strong, opposing tide of everyday life. I want to simply bring back these lost moments and memories and blend them into the essence of our day-to-day life. That is how I seek to return to the land of disappearing sunsets and fading rain…