We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Maithillee Zaveri a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Maithillee , appreciate you making time for us and sharing your wisdom with the community. So many of us go through similar pain points throughout our journeys and so hearing about how others overcame obstacles can be helpful. One of those struggles is keeping creativity alive despite all the stresses, challenges and problems we might be dealing with. How do you keep your creativity alive?
Beig a full time artist is quite a rewarding career but it also has its setbacks. The desire to consistently create original artwork is taxing on the mind. It’s absolutely imperative to allow oneself to take mental breaks during the creative process. Exposing myself to the outside world in various ways, such as taking a walk nature, looking at other art, listening to music, or simply just taking a break from the studio are all ways in which I allow my creative mind to refuel and recharge, so that it can continue to run as a well maintained creative machine.
Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
I was in class 6 when i was asked what i want to become when i grow up? i was confident about my answer since then & i said, an artist. Little did i know back then here were not much opportunities/scope to become an artist but i did not lose hope. It was in 2004 when i was offered to do my first exhibition in New Delhi.
I’m born & brought up in New Delhi, India. did my schooling from The British School New Delhi & graduated in 2008. I moved to Singapore later & pursued BFA Fine arts painting from The Lasalle college of the arts (2008 – 2011). in 2011 i moved back to New Delhi, built my network here & started exhibiting again. I took every exhibition as an opportunity to build more nextworks, try to sell my works, market my exhibitions but not all days, weeks, months or years are the same. there are times when artworks are not sold for even years which many a time demotivates me as an artist but i do not lose hope. i continue to ceate smaller artworks/sketches which are maintainable & occupy less space. then try to resell my older works & new works through social media. this has especially been the case with me post covid – 19. the art market now is accepting alot of digital artworks & the hand painting artists works are less appreciated. i do give my works many times to NGOs too & off late been working on commission basis on orders (i.e when clients give a picture of the works they want me as an artist as it is made for their office/resident etc) whenever i get them.
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
i think the most important skills in the artistic career are communication, knowledge of art mediums, knowldge of materials, perspective, proportions, light & shadow. Communication: it’s important for artists to network, socialise & communicate with clients & art galleries to negotiate deals to display art works. with clients its crucial because when the give an artist comission works on orders, the artist has to be in touch with the client constantly to show him/her the artists work in process, understand the clients requirements, receve feedback & share updates. knowledge of art materials: art materials are the fundamental elements which help artists create & articulate their ideas on paper or other mediums As an artist, we have expertise in using different art materials like paints, brushes and other tools effectively in our projects. Understanding the advantages and disadvantages of art supplies helps us to choose the appropriate supplies depending on the projects.
knowledge of art medium: every artist specialises in a specific medium. they may use acrylic paints, fabric paints, oil paints, clay, charcoal and other mediums to create their artwork. Learning to use these materials and techniques helps us as artists to execute our work better and with precision. we may also use multiple mediums to create an artwork, and its prior knowledge is crucial for effective implementation.
perspective: As an artist, i often showcase three-dimensional reality on a flat surface, such as a paper, title or other material.
The knowledge of perspective helps minimise distortion and depict real-life objects or things precisely. Understanding perspective also helps establish the relationship between various objects within the composition and allows viewers to interpret the entity’s size and distance.
Proportion: (this specifically is very important for me as my works depict landscape, still life/obervational/architectures) it all requires the knowledge of proportions and relative sizes. It helps me create lifelike artwork and enables viewers to correlate the art with real-life items, places or people. i believe proportions may create balanced & symmetrical artworks.
light & shadow: Knowledge of light and shadow plays a crucial role in any artwork. i create artworks to emote different moods. The precise use of lighting and shadows enables me to create realistic paintings or combine them with other techniques to create an illusionary art piece.
Art is something which is always about exploring, learning new techniques & i believe there is no end to learning different forms of arts too. one needs to keep experimenting & learning, communiating with art mentors, consultants, art galleries & clients for reviews and feedbacks.
If you knew you only had a decade of life left, how would you spend that decade?
post covid – 19, it has become extremely difficult to sell my works as an artist. not only are galleries having expectations from artists but they have also become a lot more expensive for artists to showcase their works in galleries. the art maket demands keep changing making it difficult for me to sell my works & not many galleries accepting my kind of works (i.e conceptualised landscape paintings, portaits & black + white mixed media architecural artworks. the demand for fine artists, painters i declining due to art going digitalised. everywork is digitalised, many self taught artists are flourishing more than professional artists. its not easy to sell works but it is easy to showcase your works online or though a word of mouth. one can’t keep making new works when the older works are not sold still. space becomes a problem. yet, i haven’t lost hope & continuing to make A3 size artworks on paper and they are easy to maintain.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: maithilleez89
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mnzaveri/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maithillee-zaveri-33237a39/?originalSubdomain=in
