Minimal Musings: Artist Spotlight – Quanta
Who are you?
I am not strong with labels but here goes a few – graphic designer, merchandiser, performance artist and explorer of both inner and outer space. I like to illustrate and design with the least, letting the flavors mix with each other rather than pushing them to. In my free time I help individuals and startups look good.
How would you introduce your work to the readers?
Iconic, flat, minimal and utilitarian. I like to fuse art and design in most of my work, using both to effectively communicate with the viewer. I like to work with illustrations, vectors, renders, branding, UI/UIX, information architecture and amalgamations of DIY projects where I tend to go wacky at times.
What are your influences?
That would be a big list because I like to fuse a variety of methods for any given work of art. Researching Classical artists like Van Gogh, Picasso, da Vinci, Monet, Cezanne has helped create a strong foundation for my style. Modern artists, Paula Bonet for simplicity, Gabriel Moreno for how he uses his colors, Peter Gric for his obsession with geometrical structures and the human body, Alex Grey for a similar treat except a lot more spiritual, Autumn Skye for the way she creates interaction between the viewer and the art with her portraits, the list could go on here too… When it comes to design, my historical inspirations date back to da Vinci as I feel he was more of the designer than the artist. Among modern designers I have found the works of Michael Graves, Richard Rogers, Klemens Torggler, Philippe Starck, for his most accomplished polymath projects, and the design colossus Jonathan Ive to be particularly varied and therefore significant in the learning curve. Modern designers/illustrators like Android Jones, Yuko Shimizu, Ryan Putnam, Meg Robichaud, Axel Herrmann, have very distinct styles that I draw inspiration from for a lot of my work. Graffiti artists give me a high with their concepts and use of space as well. I love Banksy and Jean-Michel Basquiat, I think we should all look out for Snik, COMBO and Susho for their freestyle storytelling talent. P.S. – the first extraordinary work of art I remember was Aabol Taabol, by Sukumar Ray, that’s the kind of work I’d like to go ahead with for the time being.
What inspires you?
Life, spirit, music, fashion, architecture, landscapes, philosophy, light and dark, poetry, words, things, thoughts, situations, experiences – anything that requires a solid visual translation. The everyday things inspire my daily projects.
How do you interpret art?
I think art is the balance that you create between your creative block and your all-awesome inner artist. I have always liked to leave a line there, an inkblot here to facilitate creative bubbles that transport me to the other world of 100% visual therapy. It’s a lot like physics, can be broken down to the simplest and smallest elements and the same beautiful elements can be used to build up wholesome and inspiring visual experiences.
How would you define your relationship with sloth- the sin and not the animal?
I think the animal is pretty cool, you wouldn’t get a better weekend sidekick.
But interestingly, if you observe the “sin”, ALL actions and behaviors can be summarized under two broad distinctions – laze and greed. The question here is what is your motivation? In fact sometimes I do not have any motivation and at the end of the laziest day in a while I find myself overflowing with ideas that I note down so I can translate them onto various mediums over the days to come.