Mumbai has always inspired me as an artist. Even at the height of my autobiographical works in 1994-97, my self-portraits simulated an image on a public wall, peeling and layered with various graffiti. The city street is my university. When I step outside my home, I learn something that I never would in an art class. In Mumbai, an experience is almost always amplifier—whether it’s the joy of a festival or the terror of riots, and on a more everyday level, whether it is the minor scuffles in local trains or the bhajans being played en route. The city does not feature in my work in a direct way but through metaphors and reworking of images or photographs that inspire my work. I have moved from looking at the struggles of people in the city to the struggle of the city itself as if it were a living organism.

For instance, Petromorphine — one of the works exhibited at Sweatopia, my recent solo at Mumbai’s Chemould and Bodhi Art galleries — is actually a flyover packed with 1,000 vehicles. From a distance though, it resembles a wreath or a distorted tyre gone bust. Caught in traffic, the vehicles morph into a tangle of metal that’s rendered in a fragile-looking material which is actually quite hard.

Another example is Autosaurus Tripous, which is a rickshaw made of what look like bleached bones. Riot-damaged vehicles initially inspired this work but later it took on a life of its own — as a grotesque toy that was tragic and funny at the same time. It could also be interpreted as an abandoned carcass of discarded automobiles in the fast-changing, strife-ridden Indian streetscape.

... contd.