Last week I had the pleasure of visiting the studio of talented emerging
artist Hormazd Narielwalla, to discuss the inspiration behind his fascinating work
and to see a selection of his most recent series Le Petit Echo de la Moda, the focus of his exciting solo exhibition at
the Indian Art Fair in new Deli beginning at the end of January 2014.
Having seen a selection of images
from this particular series online I was particularly looking forward to admiring the work in real-life, and when I arrived at the studio, the vibrancy of the
colours and textures were intensely more striking than I expected. Not
surprisingly, Hormazd’s work is continuing to gain amazing responses worldwide,
and identifying
him as an artist of growing international acclaim, this year the Crafts
Council selected him as one of only eleven artists to exhibit in the Project
Space at Collect 2013 hosted by the Saatchi Gallery. The Saatchi
Online magazine also declared him as “One to Watch” in October this year.
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| Photo credit: Hormazd Narielwalla |
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| Photo credit: Hormazd Narielwalla |
I was interested to find out how Hormazd’s fascination with tailoring
patterns first began and I learned that, having earned the only
International Rector’s Scholarship from London College of Fashion, it
was at Dege & Skinner on Savile Row that he started to experiment with tailoring
patterns. Here he wrote the tailoring biography of Master Tailor Michael
Skinner, The Savile Row Cutter and, inspired by bespoke patterns of
customers now deceased, he produced a beautiful limited edition art book named Dead
Man’s Patterns, which has been acquired by several art collections around
the world, including the Rare British Modern Collection at the British Library
and the National Art Library.
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| Photo credit: Hormazd Narielwalla |
On his first visit to Dege & Skinner, Hormazd was
intrigued by the patterns concealed in brown paper envelopes that were destined
to be shredded; he couldn’t believe that these beautiful drawings and paper
blocks full of knowledge, history and personal details were going to be lost. Finally
given set of patterns, Hormazd was never going to make suits out of them, but
he started to view the patterns as objects in an aesthetic sense, and saw that
he could revitalize them to create things other than clothes.
Hormazd has exhibited
in London, Melbourne, Stockholm, Athens and the eminent Scope Art Fair in New
York, however, his next showcase is a highly anticipated solo
exhibition from 30th January to 2nd February for the Birla Academy of Art and
Culture at the Indian
Art Fair in new Deli. As India’s premier international art fair and a pioneering
platform for contemporary art in the Asia region, the exhibition focuses on Hormazd’s
most recent series Le Petit Echo de la
Mode, in which he draws inspiration from the similarly named Parisian fashion
and lifestyle magazine published between 1897 and 1983.
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| Photo credit: Hormazd Narielwalla |
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| Photo credit: Hormazd Narielwalla |
What is particularly compelling about
this body of work is the exploration of the blurring lines between fashion and
art, and the tensions that lie between figuration and abstraction. In transforming
the ‘do-it-yourself’ tailoring pattern guides into a cubist’s delight of
abstracted two-dimensional shapes, Hormazd infuses his works with a sense of
rejuvenation and revival. Re-using discarded materials, he reworks the tailoring templates
into delicately faceted planes of colour, giving new life and meaning to these
once forgotten and abandoned patterns.
Thank you to Hormazd for participating in such an in-depth discussion; I left his studio feeling extremely inspired! To find out more about him and his work please visit http://narielwalla.com/
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