Profile
Kunal Kalra is a discerning and prehensile Fine Arts Graduate who aims to devote himself as a renowned artist. He has recently completed his Bachelor of Fine Arts from Faculty of Fine Arts, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi. I have chosen to put his profile here in Blog, not because being a Jamia student, he is known to me, but because after having conversation to him about his works, thought process and aspirations I thought I should do it. Although until last year during my study days at Jamia, I often used to see him in college premises, in canteen and in Art History Department quite few times, but never even exchange a single 'hi'. What initiated me to have any interest towards his works is he was searching someone to have the 'words' over his 'images'.
Last yesterday while sitting afore to him, discussing over his works, I felt him an obdurate gentleman in his thinking process and life's decisions. As he told me that he is a Computer Science Graduate also, and after spending three years in a well-settled job at the age of 26, he resigned from the job and enrolled into a Bachelor degree course again with Fine Arts. For his acquaintances it was likely to start from a zero again but he responded to his 'real call' herewith. There was some inside intuition that motivated him to do so, due to his belief that Art begins with honesty, asks tough questions, comes from collaboration and from trusting on own intuition. His art fills him with a sense of accomplishment and integrity, and has proven a most apt vehicle for translating inner vision to outer reality.
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| Artist Kunal Kalra |
Born and brought up in Gurgaon, Haryana, Kunal have been neighboring the transformation of a materialistic civilization. During last 7-8 years the pace of metamorphic process of 'Gurgaon' into a 'proposed mini-Japan' has been more than any initial period. Therewith he has experienced/is experiencing the fast-moving life of a metropolitan New Delhi also, closely attached to Gurgaon. Being an eye-witness of the process of Urbanization, which we call development replaces many existing elements, as he feels. This replacement washes its hands with both tactile or palpable and intangible aspects of life around. It happens at the cost of discrepancies in social, cultural, ecological, political and even in personal relationships in the quick desire of becoming modern.
He takes these tangible aspects as subjects for his works and keeps the tactile aspects as objects of them. Thus, his works are depiction of internal conflicts because of external hypocrisies born out of discrepancies happening around. Hypocrisies which are sprouted and grown in personal to social or local to global milieu give birth to negligence to roots, base or purity of lives. Ecological imbalance, exploitation of natural resources, political instability, shifting belief system, declining relationships, moral and cultural values are the immediate and tardy effects of it. Kunal has chosen the daily life's mundane objects like pressure cooker, water-taps, ladders, water heating rode, electricity boards and switches, buckets, utensils, pitcher etc. to show the 'replaced' elements, engravings from past memories and calculations as a background at few place along with a form of nest.
Nest is commonly considered as a symbol of home or a new start for a family, and here he sees the nest as a neglected object too, generally made up at desolated places by birds. These nests are ignored by human beings that there are 'lives' exists within, in the process of seeking individual comforts around them. So, he take up the nest as a symbol of negligence also; hence convert the neglected objects and elements of contemporary life like water taps, letter-box, pressure cooker and even women into a nest by giving the 'nested texture' to them. Use of the image of camel also indicates to the same. And birds along with these 'modified' or 'transformed' nests, speak of human beings as a metaphor. Thereto in many cases the earthen nests or traditional household objects are neglected in desire of designer ones for becoming modern or for the individual member's need and meanness. So he has taken guitar, buildings, headphone, designer sofa, western toilets and even Airtel dish and converted them into nest form which tells the 'sheep walk' of 'modern' beings. Birds outside the nests are symbolic replacement of neglected senior members those build up the homes but couldn't cope up with the process of modernity thus neglected.
Three-dimensional rectangular shapes are visual memory of 'titres' game, as if concentration lacks the game gets over; similarly if attention wouldn't paid to these imbalanced acts/effects of urbanization and modernization, the game of 'life' would get over someday. The threads and pipes are for portraying the connections and communication as they are wrongly or complexly connected and sometimes lacking at their apt place. His color palette contains sometimes dark and pale colors lacking brightness to reflect his momentary moods during the thought conflictions. Color appear spontaneously and are not pre-determind. He is also intending to use three-dimentional objects along with two-dimentional surface of paintings and prints as he has done a work using a dish antenna. It presents the idea of miscommunication and ecological imbalance, where we have to pay for even natural primary needs for life like air, water, earth etc. Thus it suggests 'Airtoll' instead of 'Airtel'. These experiments he wishes to pursue as an extension of what he is doing presently as a material, method and thought process.
He believes learning is a continuous and never ending process and he wants to keep addition in his learning account throughout the life. His works deconstruct variety of thoughts comprising the deterioration of values which consists of multiple issues from life around, which recalls the past, traces the present and tries to anticipate the future. I wish him all success for his future endeavors.
Image Courtesy: The Artist
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