Hello everybody! I hope that you are all doing well! I wanted to share one of my favorite artists that I came across during quarantine last year. During a year of terrible hardship and pain, as it was for so many around the world, coming across this artist opened my eyes to a new way of expression and truly mesmerizing and beautiful artwork. Enjoy!
Bijay Biswaal is a self-taught Indian artist of national and international repute who has made his mark by encapsulating the beauty that is Indian scenery, culture, people, and religion. What I love most about Biswaal as an artist is that he does not limit himself to mediums. Though he does excel in acrylic paintings and ink sketches, he ventures beyond, using watercolor, oil pastel, collage, cartoon, and caricature. I fell in love with the way that he captures his subjects when I first came across him on Instagram. The way in which he can manipulate acrylic paint to behave like watercolor while maintaining opacity and shine is incredible to witness. He has a way of bringing out so much dimension, movement, and dynamics in his work.
I have myself tried replicating some of his work, particularly his ink drawings of Ganesha the Elephant God, Goddess Lakshmi, and Radha Krishna. I find that using the work of other artists as study pieces, learning how they use lines to create beautiful art, is very rewarding and educational. Just from understanding his linework, I can say that I have a better understanding of how to capture movement in figures and portraits, attributes that I plan to implement in my own way when I create.
Bijay Biswaal has grown a following that spans the world. He is the Indian brand ambassador for Windsor and Newton and has collections in many places internationally including Mumbai, Chicago, Australia, Istanbul, Turkey, London, and China. This incredible artist has provided me with so much joy, and during a time when it was very difficult to grow artistically and find inspiration, Biswaal was able to provide that for me. He has really worked towards redefining realism and creating such a unique method of rendering.
I implore all of you to seek out this incredible artist. I have attached all of Bijay Biswaal’s links below including his Instagram and website.
https://www.instagram.com/biswaal/
As I say every week, if anything that I discussed in this post stands out, or if any questions arise please feel free to comment and share your thoughts!
Looking forward to next Sunday!
~ Riya
Personal website: https://riyarts.weebly.com/
This week I had the opportunity to chat with Akshay Chacko, Co-President of Michigan Electronic Music Collective (MEMCO). He gave me some insight into what MEMCO does on campus, how they’ve adjusted to COVID, and how students can get involved with the organization. Let’s dive right in!
addresses these areas by providing equipment for their members to learn and practice on – from their full-scale, state-of-the-art setup to more portable DJ controllers that are able to be individually borrowed during COVID (and which they were able to get thanks to an Arts at Michigan grant!). They also host a series of speaker panels and educational events which cover topics like the history of electronic music, insights from talent bookers or graphic designers, and understanding the intersectionality that techno music was built upon – including its connections to Detroit. Many of their educational programs have been able to be moved online fairly seamlessly, allowing their members to grow their passion and knowledge of music even in quarantine.
which it’s usually just members of our club but sometimes we would book, like, bigger artists from Detroit and stuff. We handle the booking, we handle, like, the graphic design, the promotion, and we meet up and then go, you know, poster around campus and downtown and stuff, and then we handle the production of this event from start to finish.”
dle booking and all these things and, like, for an upcoming event we have booked some DJ and stuff… I’d say we have a professional setup that is, like, up to par with, you know, any big DJ and what they’re doing, so it’s as good as we could be. I’m honestly, like, really proud of the setup that we have to do our live streaming.”
