Hello Hinglaz and welcome to NotRandomArt. The current issue is revolving around the problem of communication and identity. Is there any particular way you would describe your identity as an artist but also as a human being in dynamically changing, unstable times? In particular, does your cultural substratum/identity form your aesthetics?
The underlying themes of my art more often than not seem to deal with the questions of identity,of reconciling the old with the new, of inspiration and of a psychological sense of belonging since these questions have preoccupied me for the better part of my life now.
Therefore, although an intuitive and subconscious process, my own inner struggle to make sense of my human purpose in a complex and multilayered world seeps into my art. On one hand while I have struggled to reconcile the multiple identities that I have inherited as part of my legacy- as a woman, as an assamese (I come from a comparatively remote part of India, still a little ‘separate’ from the ‘Mainland’ with its unique richness of the arts, culture, music and literature), and as an Indian with its particular history and a dream of the future as a developing nation with a huge young population with its struggle between the old and the new. Add to that the identity that I have carved out for myself as an educated urban professional who left home to come to the city of Bangalore and be a part of its new world economy with its resultant urban angst and search for meaning. I often think as to which of these identities inform my identity as an artist more and the answer perhaps is ‘all of them’, although when I take up my brush and paints I am not aware of any particular one. My aesthetics have definitely been informed by my cultural moorings (growing up in India with its history and geographical diversity which makes it anything but a homogeneous culture) but I suspect it has been even more influenced by my own personal sense of identity which has formed both as a rebellion to what is ‘expected’ of me from society and the traditional viewpoint as well as a sense of belonging to the world as a liberal, conscious global citizen.
Would you like to tell us something about your artistic as well as life background? What inspired you to be in this artistic point in your life when you are now?
Growing up in the sleepy town of Guwahati in India, my creative bent was more towards music and literature, and I and my siblings were fortunate to be exposed to the great literature and music from around the world at an early age. I published my creative writings and trained in classical music from an early age. My introduction to art started more tangentially when as a teenager I read Van Gogh’s biography ‘Lust for Life’ but it impressed upon me more the artists struggle and pain rather than the visual element of art. That came later when I stumbled across the works of great masters like Rembrandt, Cezanne, Monet and later Jackson Pollock’s abstract works which made me do a double take and I felt moved by it in a way that representational art hadn’t. Still, the attraction towards expressing myself through painting came upon me suddenly, at a much later age, around the time I quit my management consulting career of 18 years in early 2018 when I became aware of a compulsive need to make art. I suddenly found a medium that gave me a way to communicate and express my deepest subconscious thoughts and desires. It was thereupetic and fulfilling to say the least. Though untrained, suddenly I found that I could start with a blank canvas and lose sense of space and time till I had translated that untranslatable feeling onto the canvas in an almost meditative trance.
Where I am now, it has become a compelling need to paint, to make art and to continue in this exciting journey of discovery which I at last feel is my calling, after years of searching and waiting.
Could you identify a specific artwork that has influenced your artistic practice or has impacted the way you think about your identity as a participant of the visual culture?
I cannot pinpoint one specific artwork that made that sole impact perhaps because I never trained in art and discovered the works of Jackson Pollock almost by accident while in college. They moved me and definitely had an impact. Before that , seeing the paintings of the great masters awed me and reading ‘Lust for Life’ left an impact and Van Gogh’s sunflowers became an idiom for the suffering , pain and beauty that an artist endures.
In recent adult years that culminated in my taking the leap as an artist, I did find myself looking keenly at the art of modern artists like Marc Chagall and William de Kooning.
Since you transform your experiences into your artwork, we are curious, what is the role of memory in your artistic productions? We are particularly interested if you try to achieve a faithful translation of your previous experiences or if you rather use memory as starting point to create.
At the point of starting with a blank canvas, I am intensely aware of a particular ‘memory’ or the memory of a feeling and a need to try and paint what that feeling exactly looked like and felt like and smelled like and sounded like, all in paint. It is almost synesthetic for me to that extent. The subconscious and the intuitive then takes over and I no longer think of how it ‘should’ develop, only whether it ‘feels right’ or not.So memory is both a starting point and a guide at the back of my mind but not for a faithful translation of something previous but more as a way to tap into my personal subconscious as well as into the ‘collective unconscious’, if you will.