MUKESH AMARAN
ALBUM
ARTicle:
AKANKSHA
What are your thoughts on how other art apart from
music is perceived in our music scene? (Like visual arts,
album arts, photographers and the likes)
Hello, little bit about yourself and your background in
arts and music?
Hey, my name is Akanksha. I’m a 22-year-old product designer
and illustrator based out of Bombay. I’ve been drawing for
as long as I can remember and I also took Hindustani vocal
lessons for about 8 years as a child, so art and music have
always been intrinsically linked to my life. On a daily basis,
I can’t step out of my house without my earphones and a
sketchbook.
Tell us about your collaboration with the Ramya Pothuri
from conception to creation and the end product.
Ramya and I have been friends ever since she moved to India
about six years ago; we have very similar tastes and also share
a great working relationship. Whenever she has new music
she’s writing, I get to listen to it from the first demo to the
final mix so it’s super fun to be involved in that process. I’ve
also worked on a lot of her album arts. When it comes to the
process, she usually has vague ideas that we discuss and she
doodles, and then it’s up to me to kind of interpret them and
bring them to life. For Summer, there were actually two final
options that I had sent to her and I didn’t know which one
she picked till the song was out! I also did a simple animated
visual for her YouTube channel which I really enjoyed
making because it was the first time I made an animation.
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The
Score Magazine
highonscore.com
I think it’s great that the music scene and musicians in
general appreciate visual art and the work that goes into it
because at the end of the day all of us have similar struggles
as creatives. I love to see collaborations with artists, whether
it is for gig posters or music videos. I think musicians go
out of the way to work with artists, photographers and
filmmakers whose work they truly connect which makes the
end result beautiful.
How is creating an album art different from creating
other art?
With creating album art you really have to understand the
mood of the song and try to bring that out in whatever you
make. I don’t know if the process is very different for me
personally because a lot of my art stems from some song I was
listening to. The only difference would probably be that when
I’m making album art, I listen to the music I’m making the art
for on loop in the background and I think that helps.
Tell us about your art style and the concepts behind
your artworks .
My favorite medium to work with is watercolors and I love to
draw people and their exaggerated moods, fashion choices and
gestures. I don’t think I have one particular style but maybe
a few depending on the time frame I have while creating a
piece and whether I’m drawing from life or using a reference.
Conceptually, it’s just giving tangibility to my own complex
emotions to help me process them better.