Shanaya Lalkaka
Tuesday, July 22, 2008 23:59 IST
With a quirky style, Jayesh Sachdev is one of the most innovative of the few pop artists in India
At the age of 21, in the hopes of honing in on his artistic interests, Pune based Jayesh Sachdev set out to Singapore to pursue a course in visual communications. Having graduated with an advertising major, he returned home and has been dabbling in various fields to satiate his creative drives ever since then.
Now 28, Jayesh continues to be inspired by all things highly graphic in nature. He says, “I grew up admiring artists like Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein who are some of the best pop artists of our times. Although pop art is quite Western, I am quite ‘old school’ in essence or in style, retaining as much of an Indian influence in my work as possible.” The only commercial artist in his family, Jayeshs’ local inspirations also include Raja Ravi Varma. “As an artist, he was way ahead of his time. He did exactly as he wanted to, irrespective of what people thought of him.”
Recently, at a Fiat event in Mumbai, Jayesh took pop art to a whole new level. Creating a platform of canvas measuring 40×40 feet, and using a car as a paintbrush, the young artist sped over a stage creating a wild, almost chaotic image as the car tires smudged and dragged paint around with their movement. “The idea,” says Sachdev, “was to do something classic yet contemporary, but most importantly, something larger than life.” Although the fate of ‘Drive Art’, or ‘Tire Art’, is still undecided, what remains undoubted is the fact that Jayesh has created a whole new dimension to art. Sachdev says of what is most likely India’s biggest art work on canvas, “The painting might be restored at Fiat head offices in Italy or it may be auctioned off…for charity of course. If so, the panels may be sold separately and each individual panel of roughly 6×4 feet should fetch anything between 5 to 10 lakh rupees.”
Sachdev’s current projects also include a commissioned series of works collectively titled, ‘the Bollywood wall of fame,’ which pays tribute to the stars of the silent film era. l_shanaya@dnaindia.net
