Indian artist Jitish Kallat creates exiting picture puzzles. He combines photography, collage and painting in monumental pictures. Kallat portrays the modern stories of
India today. He has called the city streets his university. Full of engaged observations his works fill up with motives from his surroundings in the city of
Mumbai. Many of his works are self referential and have a socio political content drawn from his own life in
India. Rickshaws, children selling books at traffic lights and Mahatma Gandhi are some of his inspirations. A reoccurring motif in Kallat’s painting is also the vibrant city life, which he places on top of his figures forming a heavy wig of urban scenes. Kallat has also done several sculptures as for example a huge installation made of 4600 bone shaped letters writing a speech by Gandhi.
Jitish Kallat visited the workshop in 2009 and made his first lithograph
1000 People 1000 Homes. A shirt is hanging on a wire made by a quote from Tristan Tzaras’s poem
The Lament of my Obscurity Three. From the dirty shirt drips a dense collage-like urban scene with cars, men, women and children in hectic commotion. Besides the interesting combination of photo, collage and drawing Kallat has also chosen to shape the work physically by lasecutting an urban skyline shaping the top of the print.
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