Nouveau Times

For many people, coal tar, ropes, nails, metal discs and wax are of little use. But artist Simran KS Lamba uses these articles and more, to create a range of artworks. In his latest show, Nouveau, the New Delhi-based artist works with these materials to create portraits, landscapes, installations, sculptures and figurative works, each one as striking as the last.

Says Lamba about his creations, “Renditions of divine imagery, scenes of valour and firecrackers coupled with images that represent tranquil calm, are some the spaces that I seek to explore through my thought process in Nouveau.”

5 Questions with the artist, Simran KS Lamba

1. Artistic Motivations “Art is my nicotine. My motivation is the wish to unite the innate beauty of multiple textures and treatments…brought out through form, dimensions, perspective and storytelling; taking the shape of the content that I want to express and explore.”
2. Inspirations “Rabindranath Tagore, Ram Kumar, and Amrita Sher-Gil. They provide me a quiet alcove within my consciousness wherein I take a small break from my chosen media of coal tar and discarded industrial hardware.”
3. On the wall at home “I am not particular about an artist or a school of thought but more attracted to the particular piece that has caught my attention…I’d go for either a sculpture/light installation or a handcrafted art piece that composes or breaks the space that I intend to nullify or create.”
4. Concerns that find a place in your art “My concern revolves around the lack of sympathy for the human condition. It finds resonance is some of my earlier work from the Genesis collection with reference to a painting titled The Last Journey and is further developed in my Tar and Ink Series from Nouveau, wherein I have created a row of untitled pieces using red ink to symbolize the graphic imagery that stems from that primary concern.”
5. If not an artist you would be…“a deep sea diver.”

Nouveau is on display at The Visual Arts Gallery, New Delhi (India Habitat Centre, Lodhi Road, Near Airforce Bal Bharati School) from August 12-17, 2015.