His keen interest in appreciation of cinema, film-making and designing of posters coupled with his background in advertising has resulted in a unique art practices that blends finer points of different domains.
On the one hand, driven by his fondness for international cinema, and on the other hand, his deep interest in the aesthetical and ethical foundational structures spelt by the universal philosophy propagated in the religious texts like Bible, Prasad Raghvan’s work can also be treated as an independent enquirer’s proclamations, which make ‘religious allegory as a succinct secular process of sociological inquiry into our greed and annihilistic relationship with nature’.
Born in 1968 in Kerala, Prasad Raghvan completed his graduation in graphic design from the College of Fine Arts, Thiruvananthapuram (1987- 91), and then underwent an apprenticeship with his elder brother, also a graphic designer and artist, for a year and a half. In 1992, he joined in MAA Bozell as a visualizer at their branch in Kochi, and subsequently moved to the New Delhi office.
A couple of years later, he joined the ranks of Contract Advertising as Art Director, putting his skills and imagination to good use, to conceptualize catchy ideas. At this point of time, the talented yet untapped (poster) artist in him discovered Federico Fellini, serving as a major source of inspiration. This apparently was the starting point of his enchanting passion for cinema. He moved to O&M in 2000, when he started working on ad films and the occasional documentary, to explore the medium.
Going a step further in his cinematic quest, he started compiling a library of international movies, opting to leave Saatchi & Saatchi to launch a film club, ‘a:door'. The short-lived experiment nudged him towards the field of poster designing, inspired by critically acclaimed films, their timeline and histories. The core idea was to manipulate their textual, visual and contextual codes for a renewed perspective and purpose.
The referential points served just as pointers to build a sense of affinity and familiarity with the referred, instead of publicizing the 'product', and rather to create a parallel dialogue amid viewers with both intended and aspired histories.
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This is one of the best posts that I’ve ever seen; you may include some more ideas in the same theme about Advertising Posters. I’m still waiting for some interesting thoughtsfrom your side in your next post.
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