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Artist's Statement
Live performance is central to my practice. The script or score for my performances revolve around making a drawing. My characters thus far, Sir Raja and Yog Raj Chitrakar, are semi-autobiographical. Yog Raj Chitrakar is a turn of the century (forgotten) Victorian draughtsman or landscape painter, who goes on expeditions as an explorer making chronicles of the world we live in. He uses drawing to document what he sees. The character is loosely based on my grandfather, Yog Raj Chopra, a landscape painter whose later life was spent in Kashmir recording in paint the grandeur of the Valley.
Duration is an aspect that has become important to my practice. What does the cycle of day and night do to a performance? When I wake up in the morning and realize that I am in the middle of a performance that is in public view, what choice will I make? What is real and what is theatrical? How do I project this transformation?
The actions involve washing, bathing, eating, drinking, sleeping, dressing, shaving, and the creation of a drawing in charcoal and chalk from observation. The spectacle unfolds in the ritualistic details embedded in these actions. What goes ordinarily unnoticed, if caught, becomes a heightened moment of revelation, mirroring our very own private and social anxieties.
The photographic images that form part of the residue of my performances are a way of re-igniting its concerns after the act of performing has ended.
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