"Every little thing has a value, you just need to realize its worth." - Ashok Kumar Varma

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1. Tell us more about your background and journey.

I am a Mechanical Engineer by profession and an Artist/collagist by passion.

I have no formal training in art other than that taught in School level till class VIII. I was fascinated with art from my childhood days. My visit to an exhibition to an art gallery overwhelmed and inspired me to the infinite boundaries of creativity and it also kindred my own talents to create something new in the field of art.

2. When did I decide I wanted to do collages?

I had taken up paper collages in the year 1986 and with time I have developed my own unique independent technique in this art form, never seen before. My collages are very different from the conventional paper collages and have the completeness of a full-blown oil or a mix media painting though I use not a drop of paint, ink, or any other pigment anywhere in it. 

Everything I create is with bits of paper cutouts only, sometimes as small as 2 mm in size as per requirement. A work of size 30” x 40” takes me about 16-18 weeks to complete depending on its intricacy.

I collect old discarded magazines from the ‘Kabariwala’ (Scrap dealer) in kilos. I browse these magazines; look for the particular form and color; cut them with scissors and paste them on a specially ordered paper board and create.  

All my works carry different themes varying from sexual fantasies to mythology as well as the realities of life. I work with realistic and surrealistic forms. My largest paper collage is  ‘Kali-2000’ size 42” x 58”.

Thirty-three years back I never knew what a collage is. I never thought I will be doing this one day. Today I am drinking, eating, and sleeping Collage. It is like oxygen to me. I never get tired of doing it. The feeling of creating is wonderful. I think maybe I have been born for doing this or there is some link from the past life. While creating I always feel the presence of someone invisible, who guides me in the process.

Art gives me peace, happiness, solace and a reason to live.

Paper collage is still very unpopular in India and very few artists are striving to make it popular. Till a few years back the fallacy was that collage is an art form that is actually practiced by non-artists who are weak in drawing and paintings. And this was one of the reasons that Art colleges never had collages into their regular curriculum.

Even the annual Art competitions held by all art institutions and Art galleries don’t have any entry for pure paper collages. The curators of these exhibitions accept them in mixed media or painting sections though they actually not fall into these categories.  Mix-media is works where you have use two or more mediums to create and painting is the one where you have used some kind of paint or ink to create. 

So, PURE PAPER COLLAGES  had always taken a back seat.

I am happy now that this trend is changing and we always keep hearing about some shows dedicated totally to paper collage. I was entered in the Indian Book of records ‘LIMCA BOOK OF RECORDS - 2002’ for creating intricately designed paper collages with the look of oil and mixed media paintings.

3. Is it a financially stable career?

I am happy that my engineering is my source of bread and butter for visual art as a whole is not a financially stable career in India. You have a career only if you are from some art college and basically into commercial platform working for someone or some company, ad agency or you are good in digital art and are into animation, web page designing, or in interior decoration.

Survival is really tough for solo artists who are painting or creating art for the sake of art and trying to make a mark or become a face. All over the world, you will find so many such artists striding and trying hard to reach their goals and make their dream come true but mostly all in vain and resulting in frustration.

At some point of time, they break away from their dream their artistic skills and compromise with the reality of life and start something which they dislike to do but have to do just to survive. Thus the blessed ones (I think all artists are blessed) become just normal human beings.

Abroad still people have some respect for art and artist but here in India, it is not so. People look upon them as someone in need and thus exploit and insult them in some way or other, for now, success is measured only by the social status, your car, your bungalow, your bank balance, etc. and not by your talent. 

Then how some artists are surviving and surviving well? It is again how much you have compromised and how much you have buttered the gallery owner for whom the artists are a mere investment. It is the gallery who brings up an artist and they and only they have the magic wand to take up an artist to the top.

So only when you connect to these galleries and give half of your life’s work free to them and compromise with their terms and condition then only they will look at you. But here also only 2 artists of 1000 are lucky, rest just keep creating, keeping in mind that - ‘Apna time aayega’. Hope is the only tool that inspires them to create and create.

Now about myself- As I am doing something new and unique and little lucky few buyers keep coming to my studio (at my home) once a while and buy few works directly from me. I am not attached to any gallery. As I am an engineer and the survival factor is already taken care off so I sell at my own terms and conditions.

I think any solo artist who is creating visual art should have a second source of income for then only their art can survive. I know many artists who have taken up art tuition. 

4. Where do you get inspired to create art?

Inspiration is forming every aspect of life and if you look for art you will find it all around you. It is everywhere; you just need to have an eye. Much of the work which I have created is from what I saw in my dream. You just need a point to create and then imagination just flows.

Somebody said that art always communicates with the artist. It is the art that tells the artist what to do and where to do. Truly I believe this. I always find my art guiding me, talking to me, and telling me here I need this and here I need this… this is okay but this might have been better…. Try this color … don’t overdo it… now, stop… I am complete…congratulations. 

Initially, when I started I had to struggle for a subject but now there are always 100 new things, new subjects, playing inside my mind while working on the work in hand.

My favorite artists are many. I am a fan of any good art. I like Picasso, Salvador Dali, Paul keel, Van Gogh and so many legendary artists. I think these artists have already taken art to such heights that no artists after them could ever touch their level. We can utmostly copy them but never can be what they were and we always will remain under their shadow. 

The collage medium was first taken up by Picasso and Braque in early 20th century i.e around 1908 though traces of collage art can be found way back in 1400 ad in Greece and many places of the world where small colored papers or any decorative glue able items were pasted in letters or envelopes to decorate them.

After Picasso and Braque many artists practiced collages by attaching something on their painting but the number of work on collage was not even 2% of their life’s work. People started attaching pictures to their canvases to convey messages. And to date mostly collages were two dimensional. I started a different generation of collage. My works have three-dimensional effects, like a painting and that makes me different from others.

I have not been to any school of art and thus the grammar of collage was not known and when you don’t know the grammar you cross the boundaries and resulting in a new grammar. It is good to not know the grammar sometime for then you are free. That is one of the major reasons for being what I am today.

5. What does your typical day look like?

Depends on my workload

As I am into Engineering contract business and have no 9 to 5 schedule I can only say that when I am not doing Engineering I am doing collages and when I am doing Engineering I am still doing collages, maybe less but whenever I get time.

Collage for me is dedication, Meditation, and above all my passion. It is something that keeps me moving; keeps me alive.

Ashok Kumar Varma - Paper collage artist | LIMCA BOOK OF RECORDS - 2002.

Interview By - Shradha Soni