The Score Magazine December 2019 issue | Page 48

MUKESH AMARAN ALBUM ARTicle RAJMOULI DIXIT Hello, a little bit about yourself and your background in arts and music? And I have kept water as a common element in all the covers. I’m Rajmouli Dixit, I’m pursuing Masters in Hindi from Delhi University, and did my bachelor's (in Hindi) from Ramjas College. Professionally, I am a freelance photographer, filmmaker, writer and visual artist working all over India. Talking about the album cover, so the boat is carrying the protagonists in all the song covers, taking them to some fantasy place. It symbolizes the wavelength of the inner self and the destined place. I have trained in Indian classical music and have a taste for folk music. The band wanted the cover to unite the imagined world of all the songs At this point in your career, what role did music have to play in you getting to where you are? So, this was the artwork which came out eventually. Music for me is as natural as breathing, it has to be there to be alive, not necessarily the conventional form of it, but wherever I can get it, in whatever form. Music is a space of healing, worship, friendship and love. Tell us about your collaboration with Submarine In Space from conception to creation and the end product. Happy (the lead guitarist) has known me from college days, and I have always been flattered by his genius in music. It's started with Happy, narrating to me, the idea of his album. While he was working on the music pieces, he gave me a brief idea of the songs and what the band members were thinking about it. This gave me a rough idea of what they were looking for or imagining. And then left it on me, to work on. It was a very free process because band wholeheartedly believed in my artwork. After completing there were some little changes, which is very obvious. But during the process I had full freedom. For this album I made 5 covers for the song and 1 album cover. 46 The Score Magazine highonscore.com Tell us a little bit about the process that is involved in making a piece by Rajmouli. There is no standard or set process that I follow. It's organic and spontaneous. What drives me is a hunger for perfection, fueled by fantasy. How is creating an album art different from creating other art? There is no difference as such. The medium changes, depending upon what the client demands like digital or handmade, etc. that's it. But the process is same for creating any art piece. Tell us about your art style and the concepts behind your artworks. I don't dwell in particularities. But whatever I’m creating it’s definitely something I’m madly in love with. Every creation of mine whether it is an artwork, a photograph, or a piece of writing, it emerges from a fantasy, something I have been crazy for. It's very important that my creation doesn't discomfort me because it's not merely a product that I’m delivering, it's a part of me which I’m sharing.