Artist statement
I am an artist, illustrator and educator from the UK, currently working from Bangalore.
My work is concerned with unfilled and unfulfilled spaces. I attempt to bring together the oddly discomforting, the fanciful, the virtual and the cartoon-like, the abstract and the frame, the playful and the orderly, the obvious and the subtle, all mirrored in a refined and increasingly sophisticated array of lesions.
The non-linear and semi-autobiographical series of works that I create examine dualities of presence/absence and sense/nonsense as well as the processes we use for communicating, manipulating and reading visual messages. I am interested in lacuna and the dichotomies of logic, structure, and common sense.
I use digital drawing, photography and video to explore personal themes of British and Indian confluences. Photography offers me a context, frame and structure, but it also provides me with base material for drawing and digital modification. Through this process I draw connections with Jacques Derrida's essay 'Structure, Sign and Play'. In which, he states that there can be neither ultimate presence nor fixed and final meaning in a semiotic process that is in continual transition. In such a process there is a 'play of presence and absence', between all that has been, and all that is yet to come.
My work has featured in publications including The Guardian, The Independent, FT, Time Out, NY Arts Magazine, Don’t Panic and Creative Review, as well as books such as Fully Booked and Illusive 2 by Gestalten.
Over the past few years I have exhibited in Canada, France, Japan, UK, Germany, USA, Netherlands and Sardinia. In 2011 a video collaboration with artist Smriti Mehra, entitled ‘Ink’, was featured as part of 'Images de l'Inde' at Centre Pompidou, Paris.
Qualifications and training
- 2011 MA Visual Arts: Digital Arts, Camberwell College, University of the Arts, London, England
- 2001 BA (Hons) Design: Illustration, University of Plymouth, Exeter, England
Employment
- 2011 Graduate Teaching Assistant, MA Digital Arts, University of the Arts, London, England
- 2007 Faculty of Visual Arts, Srishti School of Art, Design and Technology, Bangalore, India
Group exhibitions
- 2013 Monitor 9: New South Asian Short Film + Video, presented by SAVAC, Touring (Toronto, London, Montreal)
- 2012 SCAN.IT, Gallery40, Brighton, UK
- 2012 Action - Reaction, Public Works, San Francisco, USA
- 2012 Collections, Fictilis Gallery, Seattle, USA
- 2011 Mountain Light Box Cinema, BHVU Gallery, London, England
- 2011 Images de l'Inde, Centre Pompidou, Paris, France
- 2010 IMygrate, Olio Gallery, Victoria, Canada
- 2009 Lumineus Amersfoort, City One Minutes, Amersfoort, Netherlands
- 2009 Mail Me Art, Red Gate Gallery, London, England
- 2009 Endpilot, Lieblings Empire, Erfurt, Germany
- 2008 The Square Inch, Thorn Tree Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
- 2006 AOI Images 30, The Old Truman Brewery, London, England
- 2006 OMP Sketch Mania, P-Gallery SOCO, Osaka, Japan
- 2006 Don’t Panic, Aram Gallery, London, England
- 2005 AOI Images 29, Mall Galleries, London, England
- 2005 Moleskine dal Mondo, Galleria Arcivernice, Cagliari, Sardinia
- 2004 AOI Images 28, Mall Galleries, London, England
- 2003 AOI Images 27, Mall Galleries, London, England
- 2002 AOI Images 26, Royal College of Art, London, England
- 2001 New Blood, D&AD, London, England
Degree shows
- 2011 MA Digital Arts Show, Camberwell College of Arts, University of the Arts London
Competitions, prizes and awards
- 2010 Professional Preparation Masters Award, Arts and Humanities Research Council, UK
Publications
- 2012 Metro Life, Deccan Herald
- 2012 Kyoorius Magazine, Kyoorius Exchange
- 2012 Design Bureau Magazine, Alarm Press
- 2012 Eye, The Indian Express
- 2012 Life & Style, The Hindu
- 2011 Platform_ Magazine, S.K.H Media
- 2010 Umbrella Magazine, Wool Media Limited
- 2009 Beautiful/Decay, Feral Children Productions
- 2009 Monograph, Creative Review, Centaur Publishing
- 2009 DE, Design Exchange Magazine
- 2009 O2 Magazine China
- 2008 Text & Image, Mark Wigan, AVA Publishing
- 2008 Fully Booked, Robert Klanten & Hendrik Hellige, Gestalten Verlag
- 2008 The Big Book of Illustration Ideas 2, Roger Walton, Collins Design
- 2007 Illusive 2, Robert Klanten & Hendrik Hellige, Gestalten Verlag
- 2007 NY Arts Magazine
- 2006 Images 30: The Best of British Contemporary Illustration, AOI
- 2006 Computer Arts Projects, Future Publishing Limited
- 2006 The Art Book, 2006
- 2005 Images 29: The Best of British Contemporary Illustration, AOI
- 2004 Images 28: The Best of British Contemporary Illustration, AOI
- 2004 The Big Book of Illustration Ideas, Roger Walton, Collins Design
- 2004 Le Book London/ New York
- 2004 The Art Book, 2004
- 2003 Images 27: The Best of British Contemporary Illustration, AOI
- 2003 New Talent 2003, Contact Publishing
- 2002 Images 26: The Best of British Contemporary Illustration, AOI
Other
- 2012 Permanent Collection, Tasveer Museum of Photography, Bangalore, India
Personal website
