Work In Progress

Its been quite some time on this piece. Coming back to Peenya Metro Station to finish what I had started almost a year back. 

This journey has been so overwhelming and honestly I am waiting for the next step. 

This piece is my final work for my Diploma project but the process to reach at this idea has been so adventurous. I want to explain the piece once I finish it. Right now I am in a place where I am concentrating on being onsite. 

There are different experiences every day. 

Whether it’s the rain or going up and down the scaffolding or the ladder a hundredth time to get that perfect angle to kill the corner and make the stairs with a flow. 

Or answering to passing by audience about the wall, asking about their opinion or when I am feeling extremely tired and someone would just come and encourage me just by saying that they really appreciate this initiation of painting and it gives me the energy to go back on the scaff and work; when they try to understand what I am doing instead of just asking me what I am doing.

Making visualization and finishing the piece has its own place but the most important part is working onsite and being in a constant enquiry with your piece. Fortunately I have Ishita , Veda and Fabrice working on their individual sites in the Metro so that we share our different experiences and help each other if one has hard time working and be in constant conversation regarding our processes. 

Inside Out

Collaboration Piece with Ishita Biswas

Working in collaboration with Ishita is one of the most important and useful interventions that I have conducted. We both have a different way of interpreting and assessing site. After the Bombay trip I was anxious to see how I take the process forward. This collaboration made me more aware of the steps I take while ideating on site. Its different cause there is someone with whom you constantly discuss the decisions that you plan on taking. This was one of the smoothest collaboration when it came to expressing thoughts.

“Inside out”, is a dialogue, narrative that the site creates within itself and the viewer. A dialogue that the under construction structural elements like the broken walls, corroded iron rods have with the only complete structure in that vicinity, the watchman shelter. We have used the elements present onsite to help us navigate through the image. It felt like creating an open ended entrance. 

Sketch onsite

Yelahanka New Town Market, Bangalore

Watchmen's quarter. The only almost constructed structure in that under construction area. 

Working Onsite

Working outside involves both intense physical exertion and mental involvement. Bright sun above you, constant crowd passing by that want to know what you are doing, your hand doesn't stop working, 

If you are working on floor you need to consider the traffic. Site inspection and awareness are also very important. Please carry sun block, glares, liquids, fruits, food, water, appropriate clothes, sport shoes and constantly take breaks. 

Working onsite is a stimulating cycle of responding to queries. You may ask what these queries are but what’s more important is how each intervention is aimed at informing those queries and not resolving them. This constant state of forming queries helps me think and respond through site. 

The first and the most important thing is to ask for permission. You are just leaving an image behind but the occupants have to live with that image. As the aim of this process is not pasting a pretty picture on the wall, but at the same time being efficient in whatever medium you choose to execute your work with onsite.

New project at the Peenya Metro Station

This was my first intervention in a public space. 
The query that I was trying to address here was where I place myself as a public artist.

Shone

Playfulness within structures, exhibited in public, displayed in different ways initiates

interaction with these elements like a smooth conversation. 

This dialogue is achieved by playing with application of single color that portrays reflection of single structure painted over group of structures.

I used spray cans for this simple application. It is quick and easy but I would rather prefer paints.

It took me time to realize that working onsite is not similar to working on a canvas.

Switching mediums is still a work in progress.

Distort

Emerging perpendicular from the ground yet structures like pillars go unnoticed. These lines, vertical to horizontal, need to be exploited to their fullest potential. Highlighting these elements tend to signify their presence as markers of place making for that community. 

This was a one day intervention.The application was achieved using a ladder and roller attached to a steel rod.

Enter

Highly dense entrances have various vantage points through which you enter that space. 

This complicates the environment around that space. In this noise the entire indication of that 
space being entry point is lost. 

The transformer structure provided a minimal sense of access to a highly populated surrounding. 

Highlighting or transforming the way onlooker examines the site or even acknowledges the role it plays is something that I tried to achieve with the process of intervention onsite.

Presence of multiple standpoints at varied distance demanded a stretched out image.  

Even though the image is still work in progress onsite, certain finished technical elements like using a gradient background helped to fulfill certain purpose. 

The Site

Onsite Drawings

Visualization

Day 1 - Application using a roller

Day 2 

Unfortunately I couldn't finish this piece due to permission issues.I was asked to stop working on this piece on the 3rd day because we were unable to get permission from the Head Traffic Police of that area. 

Elongated Permanence

Working in S10 community (a settlement close to Peenya Metro Station in Bangalore), I learnt a lot about structures. This piece, Elongated Permanence, is an intervention that enables blending in of the site into the floor painting. Elongated Permanence, permits an understanding of permanent structures like walls, doors, benches, which is something that is static but provides dynamicity to the surrounding.