Amalgamation of art, technology and humanity: That’s Baiju Parthan for you!

The experience of something magical happening, while transferring an image from one's imagination into reality of the picture space has operated as the major incentive for Baiju Parthan to become an artist. Art making was his personal rebellion against traditionally tried and tested careers one was supposed to follow.

Reminiscing his evolution as an artist, he notes: “I was very much interested in art since childhood. But I was made to believe that art is something that one did in one's spare time, for personal enjoyment and for the entertainment of others. Then I chanced upon the book, titled ‘The Anxious Object’ by Harold Rosenberg, which gave me a very different picture of art making as an evolving intellectual and formal discipline with a well documented history that actually spanned centuries. That provided me with the critical push to take that leap of faith and pursue art making as a lifetime project.

Baiju Parthan soon dumped engineering studies and joined the college of art Goa for a BFA in painting. He did not look back since then. As an artist, he is keen to see how the communication technology is affecting us. And he uses the same as his medium to produce art to amplify things that might not be obvious right now but will be self-evident soon enough.

He is also interested in technology and its inclusion in life and art. He explains: “When I say we cannot ignore the presence of technology in our life, I’m overstating the obvious. I think communication technology is something that is really transforming our social reality and cultural space simply because it deals with communication and human communication and language is the site wherein social reality and cultural identity is constructed.”

Explaining his overriding concern as an artist, he states, “It’s to reflect the changes that occur around me for one, and also to generate fresh metaphors and symbols that have the potential to expand the range of meanings that we can wrestle out of life and reality.”