We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Ansh Kumar. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Ansh below.

Hi Ansh , thanks for joining us today. We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.

I have always been into playing and making imaginary worlds for my own pleasure. When I was young I was fascinated by action figures and used to play for hours creating my own narratives. I would create collages out of Disney magazines and comics that I would really trouble my mom for at the book stores. I have always been intuitively and freely creating outside the classroom. I think it is the pressure to do art in a certain way in the classroom that made me always doubt my creative skills.

I then studied bachelor’s in Architecture as I wasn’t aware of the different avenues that taught art and not design. I realised I am not too passionate about building concrete blocks in an already dense urban fabric. Freelancing as a designer was the escape that provided me with jobs and at a point I decided that I would like to let myself explore the world of art. As I met like minded people and artists that helped me and still help me understand how this could work. Finding a community that constantly pushes you forward has been very important for me I think.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

The creations I make are the way I see the world, in layers, with funny faces. Sometimes I think how would it be if material objects were alive, what if treat humans how we treat these precious-material things. To create for me has been about expressing myself as I have not been the most vocal person in my life. It was an escape to the world I could be myself and do what I want to, be who I want to. “what if?”, what if we started looking each other through the play, colour and the stories within us, rather than judging each other in a narrow perspective of skin colour, face forms and body shapes.

The creations I make are the way I see the world, in layers, with faces blown away. Sometimes I think how would it be if material objects were alive and what if we treat humans how we treat these precious-material things. To create for me has been about expressing myself as I have not been the most vocal person in my life. It was always an escape for me to the world where I could be myself and do what I want to, be who I want to. And I want to think of a “what if?”, what if we started looking each other through the play, colour and the stories within us, rather than judging each other in a narrow perspective of skin colour, face forms and body shapes.

My intentional art journey started off with digital mediums and motion art. I discovered back the love for making things with my own hand while hand-sculpting our mud house with my brother in the Himalayan hills of Rishikesh, India. The project is called Tiny Fam Lab. The community of more than 100 people that wee call “Tiny Fam Fiends” worked on the house over 2 years from around 15 countries taught me about human connections and human psychology. Developing a kinder perspective. I like manual printmaking, developing materials from the forest we live in, ceramics that translates ideas in the most pure form and where I feel the most childlike. Adding Projection mapping and new media to turn environments into accessible magical world’s has been an intriguing tool for me.

I have initiated a project where I have a projector in the boot of my car and I draw live over the canvas of the city, like flyovers, houses, existing murals as an act to express myself with an ephemeral and interactive form of art form.

Human interaction has always been important for me. I like my art to interact. I like people to interact and co-create the artwork mostly through touch and moving around creating a change in perspective in the form of optical art. Transparency, perspective and movement are what I like to play with. I would like to explore more of the childlike perspective that’s been inspiring me lately with more accessible mediums.

One of the Sculptures from the series was inspired by a pinwheel vendor and his child selling pinwheels at Durga Puja, a renowned festival in India. The young boy kept on playing with the pinwheel with a smile. It reminded me of the fact that even with all the struggles we have in our lives, there still lies a lot of childlike play and colours within us. A terracotta and a ceramic bust with heads of stacked pinwheels are a celebration of the play the two represented for me. Was an extension of the feeling, I started a social art project with the same name. I asked people to write a message to a stranger they’d never meet, who might be going through a ‘Self Identity Crisis’ and to undersign it with a funny name. I put these messages in a small terracotta busts with a pinwheel head and then put them at different public places for people to chance upon. It is an ongoing project. Project link: http://anshkumar.art/mindblowingproject

Have you ever had to pivot?

I was training as a designer in Stuttgart, Germany in a very interesting design agency. I learnt a lot from my mentor Mr. Jörg Becker. It was a great time that I cherish both in terms of the lifestyle as I could travel a lot around europe and in terms of exposing myself to the school of design.

I was offered a Job at the end of my training and I accepted it as well. I remember going on a solo travel around europe and realising the things that I had yet to explore. I hadn’t explored and experimented enough to know what I really love doing. It is while travelling and meeting new people, their stories that you find a little more about yourself. It opens more possibilities for you.

I decided to com back to home, India and started exploring art and immersive experiences while taking up some freelance design work to earn as well.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

I believe that I would like to put up as man smiles on people’s faces as possible. To have them go away with a question through the experiences I create. I would also like for my art to be more accessible, in the streets, where people move, rather than the 4 walls of a gallery.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://anshkumar.art/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/k_ansh/

Image Credits
Photos by : Alqama Ansari, Akshay, Vasudha Grover