July 15, 2023

This week I had the pleasure of participating in an interview with Viraj Khanna. He is a multi-media artist working out of Bengal, India. He is also co-founder of the brand AK-OK and the director of the prestigious brand, Anamika Khanna. For more information about his work and to read an interview I did with him about his work, please visit his site: Interview of Viraj Khanna by Aubrie Mema

 

An Interview of Aubrie Mema by Viraj Khanna

 

  1. You mentioned that creating new work requires lots of focus, research, exposure to new ideas etc. There are many artists who jump into the process and keep creating with their instincts. For example, a lot of collage making is instinctual and it happens during the process. What is your opinion on a process like this? Do you think the subconscious- which is a bag full of research, ideas, and knowledge, helps with instinctual decisions during a process like collage, is something you could work with?

 

Answer: There are many ways to approach art making. Jackson Pollock, an artist famous for his drip paintings receive notoriety because he said the action of dripping the paint was a way of exposing the unconscious. Surrealists did a number of things to try to “tap” into the unconscious. This included drugs and lack of sleep, among other things. But there are many artists who aren’t concerned with this “tap” and focus more on using prompts as a starting place to create work. NFT artist, Beeple uses daily news as his source of inspiration. Many other artists, inspired or considering various ideas read in books and research, use these to jumpstart their creative work. You mentioned collage as a means of producing an image. This is valid as well. It is taking visuals as a starting place to reorganize and create something new. You spoke of a “bag” of knowledge and training”, which I believe all successful art, regardless of starting position, requires. In my work, each artwork tells a unique story through symbols and other layers of meaning. I chose to research in search of the appropriate symbols to convey most effectively my ideas for the artwork. Sometimes this takes patience and time.

 

  1. You speak a lot about a feeling of anger, frustration, inadequacy that hinders your process – can these be feelings that make you create? How do you think they would look on paper or canvas?

 

Answer: For many artists, anger has been an effective force behind the creation of work. I don’t have any desire to create when I am feeling this way. I enjoy working with a clear idea of what I am going to create. In fact, usually a clear image of the complete piece is in my head before I begin. Anger and frustration muddy the vision. This is one reason I have not been creating recently. There are other reasons as well. And none of these became clear to me until this week.

 

The true frustration I have been feeling has been because I have been acting like a fool! Upon entering the MFA program, I was deceiving myself into thinking that the “bag” of knowledge and training at this juncture point in my life was unnecessary to success; that it seemed right to throw 20 years of successful art making to the wind, to create in new mediums and in the methods. It has taken me the first four weeks of the program to learn this is not only unadvisable but silly. My emotions have gotten in the way. I have a strong desire to expand my knowledge and skills to include digital art in my work, but I realize now that until I master the necessary programs it is difficult for me to create in that medium. Additionally, I have been creating for the past 20 years through a tried method that has given me both beautiful results and has up to this point, expressed my ideas effectively. I have lots of imagery, symbolism, and research that I would be throwing away, which is sad and inefficient. So, I have decided, going forward, I don’t need to change my method of working and my medium so quickly. Instead, I should, and I plan to take a healthier approach by continuing the progression of my old work, implementing some new ideas and methods incrementally. As I feel more comfortable with new programs, I can try fusing my work and the new medium together.

 

  1. You mention “Society is looking for gratification in diverse and extreme ways.” Can you tell me more about that? How do you think art can play a role in fixing this? Do you think art reflects our society or do you think it can bring change? If you think it can bring change- have you ever experienced that? What other mediums do you plan to explore?

 

Answer: it feels like ions ago that I wrote this last post, which you refer to. It was only written at the beginning of last week. Even so, being in this amazing program has taught me so much about the art world, me, my relationship with my art, as well as the use of art and its limitations. Just in one week my immovable perspective on the purpose of art and its limitations has seemed to shift. I am searching. Previously I held the view that art not only could change society, but I felt it had a responsibility to do so. I have reviewed art from different movements including political art. It confirms that art is not the catalyst of change, but instead an indicator that change has come about. This is reflected in feminist art, POC art, art that reflects perspectives on environmentalism, war and so on. With this realization, the pressure I have previously placed on myself to create work that I thought was intended to bring about change, does not need to be there. I am beginning to feel both relieved and disappointed. Am I only a commentator? Is that what art does? These questions will occupy my thoughts in the coming weeks and months until I can decide.

 

Referring back to your first question about society, it is true that we have become desensitized only to feel what is extreme due to constant highly sensitized exposure. This is found in the constant growth and expansion of technology that continues to develop and science that explains the phenomena. Humans are boundary pushers. It isn’t wrong to want to push boundaries, but there are implications, and one is the residual effect of desensitization. Civilization has been in wonder of the sea, the heavens and everything we experience for millennia but science has taught us the workings or taken the magic out of the magic trick, so to speak, and has left us feeling numb.

Going into the implications and ongoing research on this impact can be discussed further, and certainly deserves attention, but for the purpose of this interview I think I will stop here.

 

  1. How do you find the right balance between commerce and message in your artwork?

Answer: Good question. My own work usually sells in exhibits. I have had the pleasure of creating commissioned works within my style based on messages suggested by the client. Often I am asked to complete commissioned works in the style and subject matter based on the desire of the client. If the work seems it would be better produced in a different style or medium I am not familiar with I am not afraid to suggest changes that align our strengths and preferences.

 

  1. Does spirituality play a role in your practice?

 

Answer: Certainly! I feel a deep connection to God and to all people. I feel each of us have a responsibility to care and serve and lift one another. My desire to create coincides with my desire to make awareness and change when I see imbalance. I believe in moderation in all things. This is the reason why my work focuses on opposition. I seek for the viewer to become aware of the two extents portrayed in my work and consider where they believe the balance should be.

 

  1. Would you paint a garden which was unkempt?

Answer: That depends on the message I am trying to express. I should note that I am drawn to beauty and organization. Because of this attraction, I am more inclined to try to find a visual symbol that can express my message with these attributes.

 

  1. What does beauty mean to you? Would you create something that wasn’t beautiful but could change people’s perspectives about things that matter to you?

 

Answer: I think I partially answered this question but let me go into more detail because I think it is a good exercise for me to express in words my unconscious preferences.

 

The definition of beauty in my work must meet 3 criteria. First, an image is beautiful if it is clean. Second, beauty is found when the form is closed. Third, the image must be simple. This definition is very broad, allowing me to create easily. This definition expresses the kind of beauty I try to express in my work. I am aware that others define beauty differently. It can be achieved in many ways.

 

Here is a copy of the interview I completed with Viraj Khanna

 

1. Can you describe what happened during the lockdown that encouraged you to begin art making?

Answer: There is a fashion brand that my twin and I are a part of. During the lockdown since nothing was happening, we ran out of content to post regularly. Luckily, there were 400 fashion magazines at home and I got an idea to use them. I decided to cut them all up and make collages with different fashion elements. This was the first time that I tried something creative and my journey as an artist began.

2. Do you plan to pass the art of textile and embroidery to your children?

Answer: The craft or the knowledge of the craft belongs to the artisans in Bengal. They are the ones who can actually pass down the art of embroidery to their children. Unfortunately, more and more people are leaving this craft and it is dying slowly. I am, in my small way, trying to support this craft by giving it a contemporary spin and making more and more work through these artisans.

3. How did you get interested in using fiberglass as well?

 Answer: The decision to work with fiberglass came out of a need. After I made those collages during the lockdown, my current gallerist Somak Mitra, had asked me to do a show. I had never even made a single painting in my life but he decided to do a show and fixed a venue for me. Because of this, I was, in a way, forced to make work and paint. I decided to make sculptures in fiberglass because I thought a show opening would require them.

4. Do you see yourself experimenting with any other new mediums?

Answer: I am always experimenting with different mediums. I think mediums are just a way of helping one express something in different ways. Whatever is required and available to me, I will be experimenting with. I prefer to work with textile as that is something that comes naturally to me. I have grown up surrounded by it and learnt the different techniques of hand embroidery over the years and I am able to express myself more eloquently with that medium. The way a particular medium is used is also important. I use embroidery in different ways to express different feelings when I am creating figurative work. For example, if I use a lot of sequins in my work, it reflects a certain extravagance and if I use threadwork in my embroidery, it expresses subtleness.

5. Why do you choose to work in large formats?

Answer: My vision as an artist is to promote and preserve the dying craft of hand embroidery in India. Hand embroidery is a very time consuming process and requires a lot of specialized artisans to create. The larger format works help showcase various different techniques of hand embroidery used together in different ways to convey a message.

6. Are there particular symbols you attribute to certain embroidery materials (like beads for this, charms for that)? 

Answer: My work is majorly figurative in nature. It is a reflection of the way I see the world. Growing up in the fashion world, which is full of extravagance and flamboyance, I have experienced interesting attributes in people. I like to speak about this human condition and how society influences people on an everyday basis. We are forced to create perceptions about ourselves because of this influence of society and therefore we are always putting on a mask so to speak. We are always behaving in certain ways depending on our surrounding and are never truly ourselves. The various different embroidery materials that I use helps me portray different layers in people. When I work more with sequins, it expresses extravagance… when I work with simple thread, it expresses subtleness( different materials have different energies).