Subir Hati -Winner of The Emerging Artist of the Year Award 2016.

Subir Hati, a graduate from the Banaras Hindu University (Master of Fine Arts) is the winner of The Emerging Artist Award 2016. I spoke to him after the award ceremony; here is what he said:

JS: I like your work, especially the clean, symmetrical forms and the minimalistic colour palate.

SH: I am a very restless person, I try to compensate for this in my artwork, which is neat, ordered, has clean lines and symmetrical forms. I have been working to perfect it over the last 17 years.

JS: How did you decide to get into art? Did you have family support?

SH: I always loved the arts. My father was a businessman and did not like the idea that I was going to Art College. I had a tough time trying to persuade him to let me attend art school. In fact my brothers are working with my father and are a part of the family business. It has been hard; I have had to struggle quite a bit because I wasn’t earning anything and my wife who is a teacher also spent a fair amount of her earnings on supporting my art practice. When you are passionate about something you have to keep at it, you cannot do it for a year and give up when and if the going gets tough.

JS: Your hard work and struggle is paying off now.

SH: Yes, I am happy. It is the first time I am getting an award and I feel I deserve it. In fact, after graduating from the Government College in Kolkata, I worked as a furniture designer, a jewelry designer and also a textile designer. After all this work experience I joined the BHU.  As a matter of fact, I work with an architect even now, not regularly but off-and-on. While at the BHU I decide to interpret art through mathematics and started researching the methods I could use to achieve this. I spent three years carrying out this experiment.

JS: Do you work everyday?

SH: I am an Insomniac, so quite often I paint all night. I do not paint everyday but I am constantly visualizing / composing even when I am not painting.  It usually takes me two – three months to complete a work. We hope to see more wonderful work by Subir Hati, especially after his residency in Scotland.