About The Artist
"Be daring, be different, be impractical, be anything that will assert integrity of purpose and imaginative vision against the play-it-safers, the creatures of the commonplace, the slaves of the ordinary."
Cecil Beaton
I am Aakash Anand, 22 year old, India based artist.
Self-taught is a word you could question. "I love to create" is an honest sentence.
The rest is a little story about what, how and why.
WHAT
My artwork is diverse, from mixed media, acrylic, and sculptures, digital to illustrations on paper.
The common element is the use of black ink for stylization of detail, something I call DARK GROWTH. Clearly not the growth of darkness, the world is good at that, you don’t quite need me. Too much light can easily blind us as darkness itself, but what’s more interesting is the fine balance our lives hang on.
This form of jet-black imagery that develops from a single dot acts as a host to a game of existence between what is real and what can be real. Music is the chariot that fuels its perpetual onyx motion and repeated motifs.
The Burnt Art series carries with it a crude form of this style, an intensity restricted to simple bold patterns which adds depth, strength and definition to an otherwise burnt wilderness.
HOW (Burnt Art, “The Phoenix Before The Ashes” series)
The technique was experimental and actually by accident.
In the moment of putting out a paper fire, I saw a rusty landscape develop among the ashes. Looking closer there were mountains and smoke, I saw the possibility of a new canvas.
The finished piece is made from a composite of layers, i.e. burnt handmade paper (400gsm) and burnt fabric (refined silk jute). The color palette varies to shades that are developed by partial combustion of both the paper and the fabric.
The fascinating part of this series is that the destruction of the very medium creates its surreal beauty.
WHY
I have had periodic visions of different worlds and myself playing various roles since I was a kid, and seeing these vast exotic environments, I have tried more than once to bring back items, even search for the actual entrance to this world but all in vain. It seems that their existence in our world must be recreated using pieces of our tangible reality. Dark growth was born with the obsession to recreate this abstract reality from brick up.
Maybe its the look on their faces, amazement in the beauty that draws them, changes the way they see the world forever, extends to them the hand of endless possibilities.
Like I told my friend once,
"A single blank sheet of paper holds the most beautiful illustration ever made, infact every one of those blank pages does. The question is, do you see it?"
Think of it this way, I offer you a moment to get lost from your automated life, the ticket to an altered reality with no boundaries and no limits, where anything’s possible.
Enjoy.
SHOWS
Burnt Art(22-26th March 2007)
AWARDS
National award for Design of 14th Nov 2002 Commemorative Stamp on "Children's Day"
"Be daring, be different, be impractical, be anything that will assert integrity of purpose and imaginative vision against the play-it-safers, the creatures of the commonplace, the slaves of the ordinary."
Cecil Beaton
I am Aakash Anand, 22 year old, India based artist.
Self-taught is a word you could question. "I love to create" is an honest sentence.
The rest is a little story about what, how and why.
WHAT
My artwork is diverse, from mixed media, acrylic, and sculptures, digital to illustrations on paper.
The common element is the use of black ink for stylization of detail, something I call DARK GROWTH. Clearly not the growth of darkness, the world is good at that, you don’t quite need me. Too much light can easily blind us as darkness itself, but what’s more interesting is the fine balance our lives hang on.
This form of jet-black imagery that develops from a single dot acts as a host to a game of existence between what is real and what can be real. Music is the chariot that fuels its perpetual onyx motion and repeated motifs.
The Burnt Art series carries with it a crude form of this style, an intensity restricted to simple bold patterns which adds depth, strength and definition to an otherwise burnt wilderness.
HOW (Burnt Art, “The Phoenix Before The Ashes” series)
The technique was experimental and actually by accident.
In the moment of putting out a paper fire, I saw a rusty landscape develop among the ashes. Looking closer there were mountains and smoke, I saw the possibility of a new canvas.
The finished piece is made from a composite of layers, i.e. burnt handmade paper (400gsm) and burnt fabric (refined silk jute). The color palette varies to shades that are developed by partial combustion of both the paper and the fabric.
The fascinating part of this series is that the destruction of the very medium creates its surreal beauty.
WHY
I have had periodic visions of different worlds and myself playing various roles since I was a kid, and seeing these vast exotic environments, I have tried more than once to bring back items, even search for the actual entrance to this world but all in vain. It seems that their existence in our world must be recreated using pieces of our tangible reality. Dark growth was born with the obsession to recreate this abstract reality from brick up.
Maybe its the look on their faces, amazement in the beauty that draws them, changes the way they see the world forever, extends to them the hand of endless possibilities.
Like I told my friend once,
"A single blank sheet of paper holds the most beautiful illustration ever made, infact every one of those blank pages does. The question is, do you see it?"
Think of it this way, I offer you a moment to get lost from your automated life, the ticket to an altered reality with no boundaries and no limits, where anything’s possible.
Enjoy.
SHOWS
Burnt Art(22-26th March 2007)
AWARDS
National award for Design of 14th Nov 2002 Commemorative Stamp on "Children's Day"
© Aakash Anand 2007-2008
