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Sameer Kulavoor
Born
Mumbai
NationalityIndian
Alma materSydenham College of Commerce and Economics; Sir J.J. Institute of Applied Art
Known forContemporary art
Notable workGhoda-Cycle Project, Blued Book, Please Have a Seat, A Man of the Crowd, You are All Caught Up
RelativesZeenat Kulavoor (sister)
Website[1]

Sameer Kulavoor (born 1983)[1] is an Indian contemporary artist and founder of one of the earliest specialised design studios in India, Bombay Duck Designs.[2][3]

His works include art, graphic design and contemporary illustration. They have taken the form of paintings, murals, books, zines, prints and objects.

Kulavoor was profiled in the third season of the Netflix docu-series, Creative Indians, featuring alongside A R Rahman, Anurag Kashyap, Anita Dongre and Piyush Pandey, amongst others. He was included as one of '50 Most Influential Young Indians' twice by GQ India in 2015[4] and 2016.[5] Elle Decor named him as part of their 15 Young Artists to follow in 2016.[6]

Early life and education

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Kulavoor was born and brought up in the suburbs of Mumbai. He finished junior college from Sydenham College and graduated with a Bachelors in Fine Art (Applied Art) from Sir J J Institute of Applied Arts in 2005.[7]

Work

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Early years

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Kulavoor began his design career while still a student, working on freelance design and illustration projects between the years 2001 to 2005.[8][9] During this time, he made a music video for the song 'Disconnected' for Vishal Dadlani's independent band Pentagram. He made another music video for their song 'Love Drug Climb Down' later in 2010.[10] Between 2005 and 2007, he worked on numerous motion graphics and illustration projects as a freelancer, including for the Indian music channels MTV India and Channel V.[11][12]

Design and self-publishing

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In 2008, Kulavoor founded the design studio Bombay Duck Designs in Mazgaon, Mumbai.[8] Around this time Kulavoor self-published zines and art books, like the Ghoda-Cycle Project,[13] the Blued Book, Zeroxwala Zine, 100% Zine, Kalaghoda Musings[14] and a series of flip-books. The Blued Book is an illustrated documentation of the use of 'Taad-Patri' or blue tarpaulin used widely and innovatively in different parts of India.[15]

Between 2011 and 2017, Bombay Duck Designs developed and designed the illustrative visual language for the Indian music festival, NH7 Weekender by OML.[16]

In 2012, Kulavoor collaborated with the UK design house Paul Smith for a line of t-shirts with artworks based on the Indian bicycle culture.[17][18]

Art practice

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An exhibition of his series of art prints 'Please Have a Seat' was held at the Artisans' Center, Kala Ghoda, Mumbai in 2016.[19] Since late 2017, Kulavoor has been represented by the Mumbai-based art gallery Tarq in India.[20]

His first solo show of paintings and sculptures called 'A Man of the Crowd' was held in Mumbai at the Tarq Gallery in 2018.[21][22] In 2019, a suite of his drawings was exhibited alongside works by writer and journalist Rachel Lopez, photographer, journalist Ritesh Uttamchandani, artist Sudhir Patwardhan, photographers Pallon Daruwala and Peter Bialobrzesk as part of the show 'The Shifting City', an exhibition curated by Kaiwan Mehta, in collaboration with the Architecture Foundation India, and Rahul Mehrotra as project advisor.[23][24]

'This is Not A Still Life', a series of eight works was exhibited at the India Art Fair, 2020 and a printed version of the same works were used for the facade design of the fair.

In December 2020, Kulavoor's second solo 'You Are All Caught Up' was exhibited at the Tarq Gallery in Mumbai.[25] The show consisted of works made between 2018 and 2020 and included drawings and paintings and explored "personal and political ideas through the lens of social media".[26][27] Covering the show, the website It's Nice That wrote that "[Kulavoor's] most recent body of work continues this study into the metropolis and analyses the “personal, political and the pandemic”, all the while characteristically placing the city as the backdrop. Very much a reflection of the current global situation, The Migrants Have Left, for example, turns his previously people-focused drawings on its head as it illustrates a life in lockdown".[28]

Kulavoor's third solo 'Edifice Complex' was exhibited at Tarq Gallery in 2023[29] borrowing its title "from a phrase coined by Behn Cervantes, a Filipino activist writing in the time of the autocrat Ferdinand Marcos. It references the phenomenon where individuals, organisations, or governments become obsessed with building grandiose structures to give an impression of power, status or progress, often at the expense of more pressing needs"[30]. Some his recent bodies of work were on display at the Tarq booths at Art Basel, Hong Kong[31] - cited as one of the emerging artists to look out for at the fair by Tatler Asia [32] - and Art Mumbai[33], both in 2024.

Public art

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Kulavoor played an active role in the revived public art movement in India during the 2010s.[20] In 2017, he painted a mural in the popular art neighbourhood of Kala Ghoda in South Mumbai on display on the exterior walls of Artisans' Center.[34] At the St+Art India exhibition 'Sasson Dock Art Project', he created Parfum Sassoon, a mural and installation representing an imaginary larger-than-life premium perfume brand at the Sassoon Dock area of South Mumbai.[35][36] His 2019 mural ' Social Media Friendly Plants' for St+Art India, is currently visible at the Lodhi Colony, art district in New Delhi.[37] He also painted the 2020 CEAT House (RPG Building) mural at Worli, in honor of the COVID-19 warriors and frontline workers[38][39] and the 2021 mural Lokame Tharavadu exhibition for the Kochi-Muziris Biennale at the Alleppey beach in Kerala.[40] A mural of his architecture based drawings is up on the exterior of the Goethe-Institut / Max Mueller Bhavan at Kala Ghoda, Mumbai.[41] His latest public art installation titled 'Metromorphosis', made in collaboration with artist and production designer Sandeep Meher, as part of St+Art India's 'Mumbai Urban Art Project' consisting of multiple sculptures, each a unique composition of miniature, stacked urban architectural structures in Mumbai.[42]

Academic

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Kulavoor together with architect Rahul Malandkar conducted a studio course titled 'What's Architecture Got to Do With It?' at CEPT University, Ahmedabad in the spring semester of 2024.[43] In 2023, Kulavoor gave a talk at Central Saint Martins, University of Arts, London as part of their 'Practice is Critical' series[44] and a lecture for the students of the Architecture Faculty, Hong Kong University in 2024.[45]

References

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  1. ^ "Sameer Kulavoor - Bio, Artworks, Exhibitions and more - Artland".
  2. ^ "In the studio of Bombay Duck Designs". beautifulhomes. Retrieved 2021-06-21.
  3. ^ "The Realities of Running a Design Studio in Mumbai". Eye on Design. 2019-07-01. Retrieved 2021-06-21.
  4. ^ G. Q. Staff. "The 50 most influential young Indians". GQ India. Retrieved 2021-06-21.
  5. ^ G. Q. Staff (July 2016). "50 Most Influential Young Indians 2016: Next Gen". GQ India. Retrieved 2021-06-20.
  6. ^ "15 young Indian artists to follow right now". ELLE DECOR. Retrieved 2021-06-20.
  7. ^ "Relative value: Family sketch". Mumbai Mirror.
  8. ^ a b Anuka Roy (Apr 8, 2018). "Relative value: Family sketch". Mumbai Mirror. Retrieved 2021-06-21.
  9. ^ "Sameer Kulavoor". Paper Planes. 2015-12-03. Retrieved 2021-06-21.
  10. ^ "Pentagram releases music video -". My Site. 2011-10-10. Retrieved 2021-06-21.
  11. ^ "Music and Visual Arts". The Floating Magazine. 2017-05-16. Retrieved 2021-06-21.
  12. ^ Team, AnimationXpress (2012-06-18). "In Talks with Design maestro, Sameer Kulavoor". AnimationXpress. Retrieved 2021-06-21.
  13. ^ "Sameer Kulavoor: Artist we love". ELLE DECOR. Retrieved 2021-06-21.
  14. ^ "Limited-edition Kala Ghoda artwork you'll want to get your hands on". Hindustan Times.
  15. ^ "Illustration: Sameer Kulavoor paints a beautiful portrait of metropolitan India". www.itsnicethat.com. Retrieved 2021-06-21.
  16. ^ "NH7 Weekender wraps up in Bengaluru". Everything Experiential. Retrieved 2021-06-21.
  17. ^ Pal, Chandrima. "Sameer Kulavoor receives a warm note of acknowledgement from Paul Smith". The Economic Times. Retrieved 2021-06-21.
  18. ^ Volpe, Heidi (11 April 2018). "All the stories behind Sameer Kulavoor's Man in the Crowd". Vogue India. Retrieved 2021-06-21.
  19. ^ Homegrown. "Sameer Kulavoor Explores The Forgotten Magic Of Everyday Life In 'Please Have A Seat'". homegrown.co.in. Retrieved 2021-06-21.
  20. ^ a b "studioELL Sameer Kulavoor". studioELL. 2020-06-30. Retrieved 2021-06-21.
  21. ^ Rao, Saritha (14 March 2018). "Mumbai's Tarq Gallery hosts Sameer Kulavoor's latest exhibition". Architectural Digest India. Retrieved 2021-06-21.
  22. ^ Rayachoti, Saritha Rao (2018-04-28). "A metropolis of many narratives". The Hindu. ISSN 0971-751X. Retrieved 2021-06-21.
  23. ^ Behrawala, Krutika (2019-04-04). "Mumbai: A metropolis in transition". The Hindu. ISSN 0971-751X. Retrieved 2021-06-21.
  24. ^ "An exhibition in Mumbai highlights how a city becomes home to strangers". The Indian Express. 2019-06-04. Retrieved 2021-06-21.
  25. ^ "Free virtual workshops for artists". www.telegraphindia.com. Retrieved 2021-06-21.
  26. ^ Singh, Deepali (3 December 2020). "Mumbai: This show explores political ideas through the lens of social media". Architectural Digest India. Retrieved 2021-06-21.
  27. ^ "Sameer Kulavoor's new show investigates the way we view the world through a screen". Mintlounge. 2020-12-02. Retrieved 2021-06-21.
  28. ^ "Sameer Kulavoor's paintings depict large-scale, bustling metropolises". www.itsnicethat.com. Retrieved 2021-06-20.
  29. ^ "This exhibition explores the ever-evolving nature of cityscapes | Goodhomes.co.in". www.goodhomes.co.in. Retrieved 2024-12-30.
  30. ^ world, STIR. "'Edifice Complex': Drawings of architecture that reveal socio-economic reality". www.stirworld.com. Retrieved 2024-12-30.
  31. ^ "HIGHLIGHTS FROM ART BASEL IN HONG KONG 2024 – MASH India". 2024-06-14. Retrieved 2024-12-30.
  32. ^ Bhargava, Aaina. "8 emerging Asian artists to look out for at Art Basel Hong Kong 2024". Tatler Asia. Retrieved 2024-12-30.
  33. ^ "Sameer Kulavoor - Biography". TARQ. Retrieved 2024-12-30.
  34. ^ "Stop and Stare: Sameer Kulavoor's Mural at Artisans' | Verve Magazine". Verve (Indian magazine). 2017-02-04. Retrieved 2021-06-21.
  35. ^ D'mello, Rosalyn (2018-02-02). "Taking art to the streets". mint. Retrieved 2021-06-21.
  36. ^ "Street art comes to Sassoon Docks: Mumbai's historic fishing district gets a makeover with the St+Art project". Firstpost. 2017-12-02. Retrieved 2021-06-21.
  37. ^ "Lodhi Art District – St+art India". Google Arts & Culture. Retrieved 2021-06-21.
  38. ^ Rao, Saritha (26 May 2020). "A visual tribute comes to life in Mumbai, saluting the COVID-19 warriors". Architectural Digest India. Retrieved 2021-06-21.
  39. ^ "Wall Of Gratitude: This Mural Is A Tribute To Covid-19 Frontline Workers". grazia.co.in. Retrieved 2021-06-21.
  40. ^ Gupta, Nidhi (20 April 2021). "In Kerala, Bose Krishnamachari unveils "Lokame Tharavadu" with 267 artists and one timely message". GQ India. Retrieved 2021-06-21.
  41. ^ "Goethe-Institut / Max Mueller Bhavan Mumbai". Sameer Kulavoor. Retrieved 2022-04-01.
  42. ^ "Mumbai Urban Art Festival at Sassoon Dock is preoccupied with the water-based transformations humans have wrought". Vogue India. 2023-02-07. Retrieved 2023-04-02.
  43. ^ "Cept University, Ahmedabad".
  44. ^ Martins, Central Saint (2024-05-01). "CSMplayer". Central Saint Martins. Retrieved 2024-12-30.
  45. ^ "Sameer Kulavoor". www.arch.hku.hk. Retrieved 2024-12-30.
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