MUKESH AMARAN
ALBUM
ARTicle
ABHISHEK
CHOUDHURY
Our Artist for the month is Abhishek, an illustrator and
designer from Guwahati, Assam. From a very young
age, Abhishek has been exposed to some of the greatest
bands to exist like The Beatles, Eagles, Jimi Hendrix.
Growing up in the north east, and being surrounded by
music, Abhishek took to visualizing everything he would
listen to. He was emotional drawn towards recreating
the song or the meaning or the story behind. The path to
working with musicians and creating artworks was only
natural for this talented artist. Starting off with bands
from college and bands of friends, Abhishek’s recent
collaboration with Chabuk is definitely a head-turner.
Having lived in many different places around the country and
having experienced different cultures from a young age of 16
has shaped Abhishek’s understanding of the medium through
which he communicates. In those years of being in new places,
music has been the acquainting factor, further deepening his
love for the artform. “Music really helped me by being this
unifying bond or like this language that broke the ice between
two strangers. It allowed me to talk to strangers. Just allowed
me to speak to people who I won’t speak to otherwise”.
Working with artists came naturally to Abhishek. “I've
gotten to work with some really great people and hopefully
this journey continues. I have worked with people across
different genres whose music I happen to like and I feel
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like they also enjoy my work and together we create
some beautiful stuff together and that's something which
I really look forward to doing again.” If your client is an
artist too, I guess it is much more of a fun collaboration.
When Abhishek takes up a project, he expects to be in-
sync with the artist he is collaborating with. He gauges
for a connection, not necessarily in terms of the music,
or in terms of their work (for other clients), but in terms
of any sorted of underlying philosophy that they share or
an idea that they believe in. Having the client in a more
comfortable headspace allows Abhishek to better get into the
music, creation process, better understand it and translate
exactly what the music speaks into a visual piece that does
not take away or stay behind the music, but is a perfect
visual translation of the album or the single; if need be.
As an illustrator and designer, Abhishek feels that
sticking to one particular style is restrictive. He likes to
experiment with pop cultural juxtapositions on everyday
social and political happenings. A language that he has
developed, that doesn’t require the viewer to have any
qualification to feel and love the piece and understand
it. We will continue to receive some awesome album arts
as long as we have people like Abhishek behind them.