Today we’d like to introduce you to leading contemporary Fine Artist Srinjoy Gangopadhyay.
Hi Srinjoy, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
My art has recently been exhibited, showcased and featured with Banksy, Jeff Koons, Damien Hirst, Futura and many of the Highly Collectable International Urban/Pop Art Legends of who are at the very top of contemporary Art world. I just completed exhibiting my art in the 2022 Art Basel Week in Miami with Connect Contemporary Gallery at the most comprehensive international contemporary art fair in the United States, the Art Miami Context Art Fair 2022. This is my second consecutive year at the Art Basel Week. In 2021 my work was successfully exhibited in the highly prestigious Art Miami Context Art Fair when the best of the art world get together in Miami for this major annual art event. At this high-end art fair I had a solo wall exhibiting my work by S16 Gallery the famous Canadian Urban Art Gallery.
In the last few years my works have been exhibited in some of the most important High End Art Fairs across the USA including LA Art Show, Palm Beach Modern + Contemporary Art Wynwood, Art Expo New York, Affordable Art Fair New York. I currently have Gallery Representations in a number of prestigious Contemporary Pop and Urban Art galleries in USA, Europe and Canada including Whitewall Galleries, UK, Clarendon Fine Art, UK, The Lemongrove Gallery, UK, Galerie Mensing, Germany, S16 Gallery, Canada, Deljou Art Group, USA, Connect Contemporary, USA, Scope Fine Art, USA, Hayes Gallery, USA, Offthewall Gallery, USA, Royal Street Fine Art, USA, Carousel Fine Art, USA, Fascination Street Fine Art, USA, The Art Source, USA, One Martin Gallery, USA, Art leaders Gallery, USA among many more. My work is in private collections of numerous collectors across the USA, Europe, Canada, United Arab Emirates and India including celebrity collectors such as the collection of American entrepreneur, author, and rapper & the co-founder of Marquis Jet – Jesse Itzler and his wife Sarah Blakely- founder of Spanx. I recently received Chitrakar Sanman Art Award which is an international art award for global recognition in Contemporary Art.
I had this belief since a very young age that “I was born to paint.” and always wanted to pursue a creative career. My father being a fine artist himself, my passion for viewing fine art daily and reading about the lives and works of fine artists, developed naturally. I was introduced to the joy of creating art at a very early age in my father’s art studio. After professionally working in the design and animation industry for a short while I decided to pursue my lifelong goal to become a full-time Fine Artist. I traveled the world, worked with many street/urban artists and later as an artist assistant under the tutelage of internationally famous contemporary pop art legend Craig Alan. These experiences were crucial for developing my artistic vision as an international contemporary pop/urban artist.
I graduated from the SCAD Atlanta MFA program in 2014 and joined Deljou Art Group which is the award-winning largest ‘Fine Art Publisher’ in the world. As a ‘Lead Artist’ for this company I am currently creating my own brand of contemporary fine art that is regularly exhibited and collected in major galleries in the USA, Canada, Europe, Asia and has been featured in the most important and comprehensive Contemporary Art Fairs in multiple editions.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
As a professional studio fine artist, there is always a high level of competitiveness and challenge Because in this industry windows of opportunities open up only for a short period of time and you have to make the most out of it. Also, it is important not to get too satisfied with your success or too depressed by your failure. So it is important to constantly continue to reinvent your art and learn from what did work and what did not work and constantly keep exploring fresh expressions and new materials. For example, the technique with the stripes and drips that is integral to my Icon Glamour collection was something I discovered from the failure of a previous project. Despite the failure, I recognized the potential of the material and developed the technique further after a lot of tests and trying to perfect the application. After fine tuning a lot of aspects including the framing and the right choice of surface I was able to create a contrived art product of premium quality that justifies the price point.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
Contemporary Popular culture, Urban culture, mass media visual culture and new consumerism for me alludes to collective utopias that attract. In my work, iconic visual material from these sources are reinterpreted in a creative remix through unique visual sampling. Commenting on the joint rise of consumerism and celebrity culture to reflecting on the contemporary digital visual culture and our everyday digital visual and social experiences are the key concerns. My process rooted in collage aesthetics proposes celebratory, humorous and witty alternative narratives. Building Utopian models as reflective, meditative or critical tools in a Pop Surrealism language is the central overarching pursuit of my art practice. I would like to introduce my new contemporary pop collections that are the latest evolution of my popular ’ICON’ series.
Icon Glamour Quintessence:
The Icon Glamour Quintessence is a series of conceptual Pop Surreal
portraits of cultural Icons. These show-stopper pieces offer multidimensional perspectives that establish a deeper understanding of an Icon’s identity, merged into a single awe-inspiring masterpiece. Bringing together elements of cubism, photorealism and glitch aesthetics the artist creates multifaceted compositions. Combining and overlapping several perspectives in one single composition, the ’Prismatic’ concept has been explored. Drawing from the traditional concept of the circular ‘Mandalas’, the artist has created a contemporary pop surreal interpretation which represent the extraordinary universe of these personalities who are worshiped as Icons. The colorful drips formed by stripes of thick paint rolling down the pictorial surface and falling off the edge frozen in time, although they still look like wet paint – add a distinctive ‘Surreal’ quality to the sculptural works.
Icon Glamour Resonance:
The Icon Glamour Resonance is a series of meditation on the power of the iconic moments in history of pop culture that continues to inspire us every day. In this collection one single omnipotent image of an icon has been deconstructed and celebrated. The rhythmic repetition of this single iconic image heightens the resonant quality of the visual to inspire and evoke a strong response in the viewer. To capture the drama of that very moment a sense of movement has been created through repetition referencing a film strip or the frames of a moving image. The application of colors and dripping stripes add to this sense of motion and also brings an abstract quality by dissecting and focusing on parts of the compositions. The bold application of brushstrokes, spray paint, color splashes and thick paint channels the force through painterly expressive interpretation. In every resonance piece there are specific symbolic elements, such as the gold leafed butterflies in the Ali Resonance piece, that reference his famous quote “Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.”
Icon Glamour Animalia:
The animal kingdom has been a significant source of inspiration to the collective human psyche since the dawn of civilization. The animal world’s relationship with humans has been well documented through the symbolism and metaphors in the history of art and literature. I am interested in exploring ‘animals as icons’ in the forms of powerful symbols and storytelling devices. The Icon Glamour Animalia series is a collection of stylized animal portraits that in combination with text-based and painterly elements reflect on the life of animals parallel to humanity. The color drips interpret the animals into stripes and colors. The physical addition of these striking patterns dramatize the romanticized depiction of the animals by adding edgy attractive personalities. These color stripes brings an abstract quality by fragmenting the animal portraits into specific sections that highlighting the unique presence and forceful motion of these miraculous creatures that we can recognize so much of ourselves in. The color dripping bars appear to uncage the beauty of these marvelous beasts and also comment on the humans manipulation of other animal species. At a time of endangered environmental future, this celebration and appreciation of the animal kingdom communicate the significance of human-animal harmony.
Icon Glow:
Icon Glow is an evolution of my obsession with incorporating mediums of mass culture as my material.
Neon signs defined the visual identity of the iconic American cityscape due to its extensive use in the commercial landscape. Today neon signs invoke the utopian nostalgia of the 1940s and 50s. Due to the longstanding relationship with consumerism the Neon sign represents a romance that alludes to a sense of identity, hope and affirmation. As a result the neon sign has a strong utopian symbolic potential that I expand in my ‘Icon Glow’ collection.
In this collection I combine the Neon and other luminous light elements directly on the pictorial surface adding an extra layer of significance and magnitude to my mixed media pieces that creates a dynamic experience for the viewer. I have always been fascinated with the role of luminous light and color to arouse mood as seen in the historic Impressionist paintings. The luminous lights in my ‘Icon Glow’ collection blends with mixed media painting, reflects and bleeds onto the larger space evoking a strong emotional effect.
Do you have recommendations for books, apps, blogs, etc?
I am constantly searching for content that I can reinterpret in my way in my creative work. My reading list varies from the iconic world classics of literature, philosophy & psychology classics to The Essential Rumi. Some of the recent favorites are POPISM: The Warhol Sixties, The Book of Symbols: Reflections on Archetypal Images, Inside the Studio: Two Decades of Talks With Artists In New York.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.connectcontemporary.com
- Instagram: @srinjoyart
Image Credits:
All image credit Artist
