Naatak Marg

Naatak Marg is an exploration of the ceaseless drama that takes place on the streets of Delhi, where the audience and actors are one. The city reveals its stories wherein the streets are the stage and the actors populate it on cue everyday. Viraj Anand‘s works reflect these stories using the universal language of urbanism, artificial light and a diverse palette to capture these movements. His works are experiential, as he relooks at the city he calls home through the lens of an outsider. These perceptions mirror his hometown with a range of media including pastels, pen & ink, oil paints and linoleum prints, as an attempt to encapsulate the daily dramas that exist in Delhi.

Viraj Anand (b.1994, New Delhi, India), is a visual artist based in New Delhi. He graduated with a major in contemporary art practices from the Srishti Institute of Art, Design & Technology, Bangalore, in 2017. His practice consists of highly detailed muralistic works, with a keen interest in defining stimulating interactions of light and shadow. Often playing with scale and proportion trying to convey a maximalist experience, by populating works with numerous elements. His self taught practice developed through a deep interest in photography, videography and graphic design.

Evolving incrementally, his practice is a self motivated pursuit in exploring the realm of image making. Making sharp turns to explore new mediums, going from pen & ink, to pastels, to oil paints. His first solo show of photography took place in 2015 at the Lokayata Art Gallery in Hauz Khas, New Delhi.

Viraj Anand Says “Coming back to Delhi, after being in Bangalore for 4 years, allowed me to become self-aware of the exaggerated visual mass of the city. While going through a process of self-discovery, and realising my affinities to certain mediums within image-making, these two processes happened together giving me the opportunity to carve out a narrative from the city, while also placing me within it. I am drawn to making works that create a grand gesture and impact. The city was a perfect way for me to paint a subject that would allow me to do this.

Modern cities today are made with mostly the same ingredients, infrastructure, transport, and most importantly its inhabitants. But the same ingredients always result in vastly diverse urban experiences. An example is the movement of traffic – like rivers, in some cities, the traffic flows like fast-flowing white water, loud and crashing. But in others, it flows like a quiet stream, calm yet purposeful. The people subconsciously define this flow, as they move from point to point enveloped by its atmosphere.”