Walt Disney, the legendary animator observed that, "When you're curious, you find lots of interesting things to do". All I did was sketch. My practice in art began as a result of yearning towards the skill, with which one can create a piece of art that speaks to a mere spectator. I must have been 6 or 7 years old, when I saw my uncle's painting for the first time. The painting was of an impoverished boy in torn clothes, staring into a bakery window that had a fabulous display of cakes and pastries. I wanted not just to appreciate it, but break it open and find answers from within. To this day, the painting has left me wondering about whatever happened to the boy.
Although I grew up learning sketching and carrying the 'artistic gene' from my mother, I decided to pursue my Undergraduate degree in Instrumentation and Control Engineering from SRM University, since I had a flair for electronics and semi-conductors right after high school.
My final year project was rather an unexpected and ambitious one - A touchstone device using Raman Spectroscopy to read molecular signatures of various materials. This was also an entry for the Analog Design Contest at Texas Instruments. My role was not only to work in the engineering aspects of the project, but also to create a 3D model of what the device could look like and then a 2D animation of the concept behind it. I used Autodesk's 3DsMax and Macromedia's Flash MX for animation purposes, since I have been familiar with the basics of these applications. Overall, I volunteered to take care of the embellishments of the project's presentation and then I became convinced that I wanted to build an existential future in art and design.
During my Undergraduate and school years, I have participated in various art competitions and have won in some. One of my sketches won The Rotary Club prize and it was called as 'The Aftermath of Tsunami' in which I portrayed the plight of a victimized family. Sketching has always been an easier form of expression for me, but watercolors and photography have become possible to get by. My interests in renowned artists range from traditional painters such as John Constable and Raja Ravi Varma to digital art Illustrators such as Carl Liu and Pascal Campion.
After receiving my UG degree in 2011, I began my career at Tata Consultancy Services as Systems Engineer and have continued till present. The job involves coding and production support in Mainframes, for a client from Healthcare Industry in US. Sometimes, it cost me a great deal of effort and time to develop programs from scratch and then I began arguing with myself again about the future in art I was going to build.
Eventually, I tried to make time every day to improve my sketching skills; one of the books I used to understand life drawings is Andrew Loomis's 'Figure Drawing' which has been greatly inspirational in making me aware of form, proportion and light. I worked upon life drawings because I want to study Animation and Character Modeling in particular. My ability to transform what meets my eye into a live character is something that drives me to learn more about Animation. Character gives identity. It distinguishes one's quality from others and as an artist I believe I can breathe life into a model by adding character.
My career and studies have not been in art so far. But I never lost my interest in exploring and learning art. The comprehensive ATEC program at your University is a compelling reason for me to learn and master the underlying principles of design. I feel I have reached a point where I'm confident enough that I can combine my experience with your Arts and Technology program to leave a mark in the world of digital media. Through variety of courses in MA for Arts and Technology at University of Dallas, I hope to find out what I'm looking for and maybe find out if the boy from the bakery got his cake.
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