I don't really care about complexity.

What about making art inspires you the most right now at this point of your career?

I think for me, mostly I just love making something that I can entertain myself with. I get bored very easily. I try to look at different things. Like, I make music as well. Even with visual arts, it's like I make different kinds of visual art. I paint and then I animate. I do illustration. So, I think it's about just looking around and just trying as many new things as possible. That just keeps things exciting for me.

And contrarily, what about making art discourages you?

Due to the nature of where I live, I have to work on a lot of commercial projects, which I feel while they are very fun to work on, because I only take up things that make sense for me stylistically, I think that becomes really difficult because I feel like we kind of live in a society where it's not really encouraged to do your own thing per se.

So it gets very difficult sometimes to stick to my general idea or morals basically because for me, I have a very strict thing that I just don't want to do anything that doesn't add to my body of work on a large scale. In that sense, it can get pretty difficult sometimes because you need consistent work, and you need to do your own thing, and without you having to worry about, let's say, 'Is this too weird,' or 'Is this too like out there', or something like that.

You want to be complex [in your ideas] but not completely obscure?

I don't really care about complexity. For me, it's more like I want my work to have, I think, intensity is the right word. I want my work to have a certain level of intensity. But I also want it to have commercial viability in the sense that it reaches more people. I don't want to be someone that's very deep into, like, the underground arts.

For me, I want everyone to consume it, because in a way, I feel that's how you actually reach [more people]. The more people you reach, the more influence you have on culture. One of the biggest challenges is defining where you draw that line and how far are you willing to go.

What are you up to right now? Are there any upcoming exhibitions, shows, or any top-secret projects?

Honestly, this has been very hectic. I did quite a few collaborations this year, and I just had an exhibition a few weeks back at Art Mumbai with Method. Right now, I'm just wrapping up. The year is finally ending. I'm just taking a breather and looking back at everything that went by. But there's definitely some cool stuff coming. I designed my first beer bottle this year. I'm looking forward to that coming out. I think that will be cool. I've worked on a few coloring books with this publication house that should be out some time soon.

In what ways does the place where you live, or the places where you have lived, affect the art you create?

I have moved around a lot growing up and even now, I think even in Bombay, I keep moving around a lot. I think one of the biggest inspirations for my art is where I am in life at that moment. So yeah, when I was living in my hometown in Durgapur, and I was going through some health complications, I can see a lot of that in my work from that period. So, I think my surroundings definitely affect my work.

Almost 100% of my work is purely like, 'Go with the flow'. So, I work on everything with almost zero planning. I think a lot of my work involves training your subconscious in a way to the point where you can just almost produce images very spontaneously. I think where I am and what I'm going through, who I'm around, what I'm doing in life, that plays a huge impact on what my work is looking like at that moment.

Are there any art movements and styles from the past that you find yourself most drawn to?

There's this movie director called Harmony Korine. I think he played a huge influence on my work. Then there's this Chinese painting movement, which I really draw a lot of inspiration from, I'm forgetting the name. There are a lot of painters from that scene who inspired me a lot. A lot of them indirectly made art about the Chinese government, censorship, and Chinese repression in society.

So, yeah, I think those things really really spoke to me in a way where I could also relate to it, because I feel like that's where our country is headed right now. I also draw a lot of inspiration from music in general. I've just always been someone who listens to a lot of music. That drives my work quite a bit, as well. Like, I listen to a lot of experimental music.

You've worked across various mediums such as comic strips, digital art, paintings, live installations. Is there any intersection in skills and knowledge between each medium for you?

Yeah, I had my first solo show this year in March with Method (Growing Pains). That had quite a few paintings, I think this is my first time painting at a slightly larger scale than what I'm used to. I feel like there's a lot to learn from every medium. No matter what new thing I've picked up, I feel like I draw a lot from the philosophy of the thing I'm doing.

So, there's stuff to learn from everything. I think painting has also changed how I approach digital art quite a bit. When I started painting, it was a lot like me drawing from how I work digitally, where it was me laying down flat colors and illustrating them with a brush. But then as I went deeper into painting, it also changed my approach to how I'm drawing in my spare time.

From the newer stuff I've been making, it's slightly more rough, and it's not as clean and polished as what I usually work with. So yeah, I think stuff like that, like I always keep picking up things from one thing and trying to apply that idea and way of thinking into the other thing.

A lot of your art employs pink and yellow colors. Are there any aspirations behind the use of these colors?

I just really like bright colors because I feel it's almost like those mouse traps where there's cheese in it, and you go try to eat it, and it kind of, like, snaps your head off. I see it like that because I feel bright colors and bold lines are a general language that almost everyone can understand because it's used so much in popular art. I feel like when something's bright, you just go into it, you want to look at it.

So I think it just allows me to a lot of weird s**t and just get away with it. It just, like, automatically makes the work accessible but at the same time, to people that are looking at it or actually engaging with it for more than a few seconds, then you can also just be like, 'Okay, this looks good but this also makes me feel weird.' For me, it's like these are just colors that will draw you in one go. Now that I have your attention, the rest is all about me playing with composition and stuff to mess with the viewer's head in a way.

Besides culture and your surroundings, have any films played a part in shaping your art style?

 I actually don't watch a lot of movies. I think I'm a huge music person because it just allows me to listen and do my own thing. Because I think watching movies gets really intense for me most of the time. I think, as a concept, at least the newer work I've been working on draws a lot from body horror.

I wouldn't say I've watched a lot of body horror movies because I honestly can't take gore, which surprises a lot of people. I think just that idea of anatomy and playing with anatomy, and what it could do to a person. I think that's really interesting. I think the first time I actually felt that was in a graphic novel by Charles Burns. It was like a three-part novel and then I also read Black Hole by Charles Burns. That was the first time I felt like the idea of discomfort.

Because I feel like bodies are something we all have. So when we look at something where bodies are being morphed in any way. It automatically makes things weird, like you just feel a little weird because you can almost feel that discomfort.

There are movies I like, though. I have watched a few movies here and there. There's this Japanese movie I really like, Throw Away Your Books, Rally in the Streets by Shūji Terayama. I've watched his short films and all that I really like. I think a lot of my newer work does draw a lot of elements from that. From his works quite a bit as well. There's also this Japanese guy called Shion Sono. I really liked his work.

And yeah, so there's stuff like this that I think a friend will put me onto once every few years. Or someone will recommend it, and I'll just like the sound of it. And then one day, I'll just watch it and I'll be like, 'Okay, this is great.' I just like work that has an intensity that doesn't just draw from one place.

I like things that have that element of body horror, that draws from multiple places in a way where it might freak you out but it might also make you really sad, or it might also have parts of it that are funny, or parts of it that make you happy. I like that multiple, almost 3D aspect of storytelling in general. When there's just one thing, it just becomes a little too cheesy for me.

At Wench, we are also obsessed with the zombie apocalypse! Do you feel there are common themes in your art from this genre of horror?

I did love zombie movies as a kid, so maybe that means something. I was obsessed with Resident Evil when I was really young. So maybe, there is a connection because in a way, body horror is just like intellectual zombie movies. Even that one, the one by Danny Boyle. 28 Days Later. That stuff also was great, where it's like actually horror, and not like Resident Evil, which was more like action.

How would you describe your experience of documenting a part of your life through "Growing Pains"? Are you satisfied with it eight months later?

Honestly, I think eight months is too short of a time. I've barely processed whatever happened there. But yeah, it's been great. It was a great experience, trying to do something new with my work, and I think it lined up almost perfectly for me because I was just starting to get fried with just being a designer and how constrained that feels.

Painting and just the art world in general allowed me to explore a lot of the things I was working with but more freely, because then I'm not stuck to design or stuck to serving a purpose. I just loved the idea of just having my work in front of me and not on the screen, and people can come in and look at it. Growing Pains was great honestly. I was at the gallery almost everyday. I just loved looking at people coming in, showing their friends.

It must've been physically challenging for you, preparing all the work.

 Oh yeah, it was. I made most of that show in a month. It was insane. Okay. That's a short amount of time. I was sleeping for 2-3 hours, and then I was just painting, it was quite crazy. This year it's just been one thing after the other, and Growing Pains also happened at a time when, I remember, the floor of my room collapsed on the people downstairs, so I had to leave my house overnight.

And then, I was homeless for four months while working on the stuff for Growing Pains. After the show, I was homeless. I was staying with friends. And then I managed to get a new house, which I'm still setting up. Bombay being Bombay, getting the new house was extremely expensive. So, most of my money from Growing Pains is going into that. I think this year has been a very hectic year for me, although work-wise it's been great.

I feel like things have been going [on] one after the other. So I think December, for me, till now has just mostly been me going like 'Yeah, holy s**t, I'm just gonna lie on this bed and chill'. Since you asked me about new projects before, I've also been working with this NGO and we've been teaching art in prison. We are currently doing the Byculla jail, and I've been going down there to teach art at the male prison, and that's been quite interesting as well, and that's actually been inspiring my work quite a bit also.

Because once again, I was fried with working commercially. I felt my work was stuck in an echo chamber, so I wanted to break out of that and interact with real people in a way. Yeah, I think this job helped me do that as well. It's been a good turning point and it just made me want to draw again. .

Interviewed by Rudradeep Biswas