LOCHAN UPADHYAY
Lochan Upadhyay is torn between tradition and globalization; he is a child of modern India today; from a small village with an ancestral twist all the way to the mobility of the ‘nobody’ in the hustle and bustle of the big city. Inhabited by cultural rituals in rural societies, urban development and rising pollution with endless waste products, Upadhyay mixes all these elements in a playful manner, celebrating life amidst legends for all scales of society. Influenced by various mediums in his aesthetic quest, he also uses pieces of sari fabric that are given by all the village women for his large wedding chairs, the whole energy creating the power of cloth. Like a symbolic dowry, the wife’s family has to pay the future husband; this ritual often ruins the entire community, resulting in the repression of females at a very young age. The artist raises these old traditional questions and their remaining influence while on a broader scale, the world is overpowered by materialism and the instinct of consumption in a metaphorical manner.
Born in Rajasthan, India in 1983, Upadhyay graduated with a BFA from the Faculty of Fine Arts from the M.S University of Baroda where he is presently undergoing his MFA. He was awarded the Rajasthan Lalit Kala award for three consecutive years as well as the FICA Public Grant Award. The artist has showcased his work in various exhibitions across India and featured for the first time in New York at the Tamarind Art Council in 2009, and in Paris. The artist lives and works in Baroda, India.
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