Anish Kapoor is an Indian born, British artist who has been studying, working and living in London since the 70's. Early in his life he studied electrical engineering but math was too difficult for him so he abandoned the idea and studied art instead. After graduating from art school he taught at Wolverhampton Polytechnic and later became artist in residence at Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool. By 1990 he was representing Britain at the Venice Biennale winning the prestigious Premio Duemila prize and then the Turner prize in 1991. Anish comes from a mixed cultural/spiritual background with a Jewish mother and a Hindu father and i believe this has strongly influenced the conceptual and aesthetic interest/sensitivity he has to making art.
The art of Anish Kapoor is engaged with a range of dualities including earth-sky, matter-spirit, lightness-darkness, visible-invisible, conscious-unconscious, male-female, body-mind and is indelibly connected to the investigation of the 'void' and the idea of 'something from nothing'. His constructions are fashioned from a host of materials consisting of stone, plastic, steel, wax, pigment powder, clay and wood. His work is built to engage with interior or exterior spaces in pre-planned, specific ways. They range from intimate to grandiose in scale challenging the participant viewer to reconsider their understanding of the world and the placement of objects in relationship to it and them. Kapoors challenge to everyone is that all is not what we think, see or know. His installations require us to re-evaluate our experience of what is normal or usual; they take us away momentarily from the standard everyday context we find ourselves in. There is a remarkable consistency linking his works.
Anish Kapoor is an important artist for me not simply because of the enormity of his projects or the scale of his vision but because of the tenacity with which he pursues that vision. I admire both the drive to realise his artistic dream as well as the finely-tuned aesthetic approach he has to materials and space. In a way he illustrates what is possible when people consistently work their ideas into the real, changing the world and the way we see it regardless of who they are or where they come from.
There is a plethora of material on the web about Anish Kapoor available to study and i hope you take time to learn more about this inspiration of mine.
The art of Anish Kapoor is engaged with a range of dualities including earth-sky, matter-spirit, lightness-darkness, visible-invisible, conscious-unconscious, male-female, body-mind and is indelibly connected to the investigation of the 'void' and the idea of 'something from nothing'. His constructions are fashioned from a host of materials consisting of stone, plastic, steel, wax, pigment powder, clay and wood. His work is built to engage with interior or exterior spaces in pre-planned, specific ways. They range from intimate to grandiose in scale challenging the participant viewer to reconsider their understanding of the world and the placement of objects in relationship to it and them. Kapoors challenge to everyone is that all is not what we think, see or know. His installations require us to re-evaluate our experience of what is normal or usual; they take us away momentarily from the standard everyday context we find ourselves in. There is a remarkable consistency linking his works.
Anish Kapoor is an important artist for me not simply because of the enormity of his projects or the scale of his vision but because of the tenacity with which he pursues that vision. I admire both the drive to realise his artistic dream as well as the finely-tuned aesthetic approach he has to materials and space. In a way he illustrates what is possible when people consistently work their ideas into the real, changing the world and the way we see it regardless of who they are or where they come from.
There is a plethora of material on the web about Anish Kapoor available to study and i hope you take time to learn more about this inspiration of mine.
