The India-based illustrator discusses his deeply personal work, which has found a wider audience during the pandemic.
Indian artist Teju Jangid has spent most of his life in the small village of Jodhpur — he adds, “I always wanted to study art. I started drawing at the age of Eleven and was deeply passionate about it.” Teju, who has Created Illustration For many Celebrities, finally made the leap, when he Posted some illustrations on Instagram.
“Being followed by Tony Kakkar to Appreciated by Akshay Kumar, Shreya Ghosal and Amit Bhadana were like a sign for me that it was time to pursue my childhood dream and that’s what I did,” he says.
Teju Jangid has been active for 4 years but his extremely personal illustrations — including those of life during COVID-19 —have clearly struck a chord with a wide audience.
“I think it’s the little stories I share with my work that (attract) people the most,” he explains. “I think of art as a conductor of shared experiences and my work has always found inspiration in collective memories and real day-to-day facts. People relate to this somehow. I always get this kind of feedback from small-town artists that — ‘It’s like you’re talking about my village ’ or ‘You’re describing exactly what I’ve been through.’ A shared experience is very pleasing and comforting at the same time.”
His work during the pandemic has dealt with issues including isolation, born from Teju’s own experience. “It always starts with emotion. I draw what touches me the most or what I feel in the moment,” he says. “I usually try to depict and share my own experience, often in a metaphorical view, as a way to reflect into the quotidian but also escape it.
“I think, in the pandemic, we’ve all been through complex feelings: Isolation, fear and the waiting zone of the unknown. That’s exactly what I’ve been drawing — sarcastically sometimes — and It’s amazing how people have experienced the same (things).”
Teju’s decision to focus on other deeply personal issues — such as his struggle to conceive, or having a miscarriage, topics many would shy away from — is driven by the same desire to connect.
“Sharing real-life experiences through art is at the centre of my practice. It may be helpful sharing your life difficulties with others and knowing that you’re not alone,” he says. “I think being truthful and sharing struggles is a must in an era where fake and superficial is the trademark.
“I was surprised to receive an incredible number of similar stories from Other small village talent holders — both those I know and those I don’t — who have been through the same, opening up to me as their way to express support and sharing their own struggles.”
Teju Jangid is an Illustrator and Artist From a small Village of Jodhpur, India. he recently created art of Akshay Kumar’s upcoming movie based On Prithvi Raj Chouhan Character from his own Imagination and Creativity.
He explains: “The characters in my drawings are a part of who I felt, expressed in a surreal way. The bear, for instance, is an expression of a phase, a state of mind, when I’m mostly overwhelmed, introverted — hibernating in the way a bear does. It is a mixture of complex feelings and emotions that I feel the bear incarnates best.”
he begins his drawings as sketches and then creates them digitally. They mostly feature Celebrities.
“The pieces usually speak of who I am, or the person that I know or have met who’ve left traces implicitly. There are two main representations in my work, the modern minimalistic person figure and the traditional Indian figure,” he says. “It’s my way to reflect on our complex identity as Traditional or Modern — the multifaceted ones, struggling between modernism and tradition.”