The Journey of the Meandering Story-Teller

In Conversation with the Artist: Abhishek Kalyanpurkar

Guest Blogger: Jeeshnu Gupta

The Birth of An Artist

Abhishek Kalyanpurkar’s love for design is only a product of the million stories he has heard and observed over the years. Growing up with his Nani (Grandmother), Abhishek was accustomed to listening to stories and each time his grandmother would tell him a story, Abhishek could imagine them, “The picture was always so clear, I used to close my eyes and could see them moving, maybe it was the way she told me the stories, or maybe it was the inner artist that was yet to manifest, each story she told was nothing short of an animated movie.” 

When asked about his sense of aesthetics, he comments “Before we tackle the notion of aesthetics, I think we must understand the conceptual difference between design and art. The substantial difference being, a design is made to serve the needs of others while art serves the needs of one’s soul.” 

The Tale of a Storyteller

As a professional storyteller and self-taught artist, Abhishek has faced his fair share of challenges, “People who come from design school are trained to think in a particular way; they have the skills to design embedded into them and acquiring new skill comes more easily to them. At the beginning of my journey, I had to compete with people who were coming from design schools and already held very diverse portfolio. In contrast, my portfolio was based on a very simple design.” 

Abhishek’s inspiration from the cubist movement gave birth to his iconic geometric style of creation. Another influence in his life came from his interaction with Mario Miranda, his works and life principles have helped him shape a lot of his art and life. Miranda, who himself was a self-taught artist pushed Abhishek to perfect his art and push his creative boundaries. 

Asymmetric Symmetry

Abhishek’s work has progressed into two formative styles as a result of his constant experimentation with art styles. On one hand, we have his mythological series done using geometric forms and yet contains a lot of fluidity while his other style includes a lot of pop-art resonance in terms of both the execution and subjectivity. 

However, his main spark of brilliance comes in his next series: The Divine Human. From his studies of the Mythological Characters, this series has chosen to show the romance within the characters similar to how contemporary romance takes place. 

Be it in the romantic embrace shared by Radha and Krishna or the spousal dynamics of Ram and Sita, the story Abhishek tries to portray remains clearer than the water of the holy rivers on whose banks these events unfolded. He sums up his experience and most important influence towards arts with the comment, “to create something on a blank canvas, is no different from creating something from nothing, it is less the portrayal of how things are and rather a mirror to our psyche”.