Hi! I'm Aarav, a passionate Visual Arts student at Brown University.
Here's an image of one my favorite places in the world (and one of my four homes :D)
For this project, we were prompted to explore color as a medium, such that our use of it adds innate and irrefutable beauty to the work, and in a way is the work itself.
Using this as inspiration, in my work, I recreate the image of my late grandmother from her obituary. Populating and layering the portrait with archival family photographs (each referencing a different phase of my grandmother's lifespan), I enliven her face with vivid colors and lively textures, all sourced from the collection of original photographs. Here, each color almost represent a different memory, and their chaotic yet dynamic blending suggests a blurring of those memories as time passes by. Yet, the color and the radiance of these memories remain ever present, forever tied to the vibrant life my grandmother led and shared with others, and now forever etched to her protrait.
For this project, we were prompted to create a relief using Adobe Illustrator and a laser cutter, with materials of our choice.
In this work, I create a phsyical manifestation of the places I call home. Combining the terrain of Sydney Harbour, metro stations in the greater New Delhi area, and road and building names in Downtown Providence, this piece reflects the diversity of my identity. Five layers of clear acrylic are combined with a gradient of verdant cotton fabric to represent this united topography. The clarity of the surface blurs the ability to disntinguish between the different layers and their individual raster-engravings, indicating the innately indistinct nature of "home" in my life.
For this project, we were prompted to use Adobe InDesign and create a zine from entirely plagiarized images and text, found from sources of our choice.
Having recently read an insightful breakthrough study into the Indian genome, I decided to create a zine of the study's findings, illustrating it with archival images of my own extended family. Appropriating from the textual and visual designs of art gallery manuals and brochures, I designed my zine to resemble something that would be distirbuted in an Indian history museum. Combining this with collaged images of my own family, however, allowed me to make the work more personal and intimitate, placing the history of my nation alongside the history of my own family. In its physical manifestation, I crumpled up my zine to resemble an almost codex like document, prserved for generations and having lived through the passage of time, adding to the ancestral and antique nature of the work.
In this piece, I explore the various facets of my own freshman college experience through a series of self-portraits, distorted to varying degrees with collaged elements. Each portrait represents a different emotion — or “phase”, so to say — of my life over the last 2 semesters, and each is consumed with conflicting imagery and wordplay, representing the polarity of emotions felt during this time— from vulnerable, to irrational.
The first-piece explores the sense of loneliness felt during relocating to a new environment, yet also the self-pity and apathy that fuels it. Intentionally concealing myself in the darkness, I ironically complain, “It’s not sunny”. Next is a piece where all that is distinguishable is my silhouette, representing a fear of insignificance in an unfamiliar setting. Here, I am both physically and metaphorically and bombarded with new information, losing my sense of self in the process.
The following piece then displays the pretense of excitement one must display during this time, in an effort to befriend new people, and also comfort old ones that you’re enjoying this new life. With layers of acrylic disjointing me from my environment, I ostensibly beam and question — was I “placed or displaced?”.
The final piece represents the ultimate acceptance and welcoming of change. Despite the chaos of these experiences, a new life inevitably brings with it thrill and adventure. As I am surrounded with a burst of creativity, I open my eyes to a reality previously ignored— one of privilege, gratitude, and love.
If you want to learn more about me, here's some links