Drew:I have spent a lot of time discussing the relationship of image and text with artists. Your works seem to be a way for you consolidate a large amount of text in one space with images. Is this a way for you to personally wrap your head around a topic or do you see it more as a way to compress ideas for the viewer to unpack and explore?
Veru:
It’s a great question. The visual language is similar to the written or spoken in that ultimately, it is rooted in a means of communication. Whether it is an idea or a human complexity, language aims to connect. In my works, I’m not necessarily trying to compress an idea or explain my own interpretation. Rather, I’m trying to connect to this root idea by communicating with the viewer. Hopefully, it’s in a way that’s engaging. I always think to myself, “If I’ve done my job right as the artist, then the visual can only be enhanced by text.”
Drew:
Your work is a kind of story telling. Explain how you use different visual devices and layering to be allegorical and what do you think is effective in this approach and what do you see as a shortcoming?
Veru:I definitely enjoy the process of story telling, and since I like to paint ideas, it’s a natural fit. One of the visual devices I use a lot is hands. It’s a very human and universal symbol, yet each gesture signifies a different action or emotion. On the one hand, it picks up the modern connotations and social interactions we’re so used to. On the other, it can be limiting for the visual vocabulary I like to employ. I have to make choices though, and some are obviously more successful than others.
Drew:
In your exhibition overview for your series All The World's A Stage, you refer to your work as 'contemporary' paintings. Are you using that term strictly in a temporal sense or stylistically? From the images of your work I have seen, it seems to reflect the styles of Kahlo and the past, deceased surrealists such as Magritte and Dali.
Veru:
I think contemporary certainly has a temporal sense because it chronicles many of the modern global political situations. More so, the paintings are contemporary because they consider the modern viewer’s exposure to varieties of media and the internet gallery of web images. The paintings are oil representations of today’s modern situations, certainly with some style precedents of the artists you mentioned, but also with new influences of today. Vibrant colors touch us in amazing ways, so I’m flattered to be compared to those precedent artists.
Drew:
When I think of Shakespeare in visual terms, very few images actually come to mind...perhaps King Leer with bandaged eyes, Hamlet with a skull, Romeo and Juliet by in their final moment, lying dead side by side. Perhaps this is because Shakespeare is so much about playing with words and not about conjuring images. Where do your images for Shakespeare start?
Veru:
I used to love Shakespeare when I read him in my school days, but didn’t really understand his universality until I revisited the works as an adult. I guess in some sense the images are part school-boy memories, part adult interpretation, and just given the parallels with the global political stage, part integration with the modern day. The beauty of Shakespeare is his universal appeal and the way he touches our minds through words. If I can touch a viewers mind through visual, then I know I’ve done something noteworthy.
Drew:
You link Shakespeare's works with current events. Why is painting the meeting ground for these parallels, as opposed to film, cartoons, essays, etc?
Veru:
I love the paradox of it all! On the one side, you have current event imagery which we see from Twitter, or internet entries or news broadcasts. By tomorrow they’re in some archive only to fade out in news highlight reels. When you stand in front of a painting, you’re always in the present. It’s physical. It’s immediate. It shines. I love that, and I wanted integrate an exhibition that combines theater, literature and visual art.
Drew:
Tell us a little bit about you upbringing? You were born here but have been influenced by other cultures. Your last name is Indian. Your first name is from the Slavic root for faith/belief/truth. How does all of this influence your imagery, palette and storytelling? Your use of Shakespeare suggests a very universal outlook and searching for a common ground.
Veru:
I’m very fortunate for my upbringing. I am an only child, and my parents always allowed me to explore my creativity and not get bogged down in paradigms from others. They both painted, but in very different styles. My dad was an engineer, so he was very controlled and linear. My mother is more emotive, so she connects to a viewer in a very real, Aquarian way in her art.
As for my name, I think having two cultural references definitely is a reminder of the global spectrum in which we live. As a part of Generation Y, it’s just how we think, and I’m grateful. I’m not so naïve to realize it’s a lot of hard work bridging cultures around the world. It takes a lot of patience, understanding, controlling of egos. Open mindedness is hard to achieve, and there’s a lot of history we need to address to move forward, but in the 21st century I hope we will bridge more of the gaps. It may sound idealistic and cliché, but I look forward to a time when the earth shall be as one.
Drew:
Tell us a little bit about your 'day job', which in your case is more of a career, and how your paintings and professional work influence each other, not just in approach to things but also in terms of being alone with your painting versus being part of a larger, more social organism/machine.
Veru:
In my day job, I work in marketing and graphics. It’s great hours because it gives me time in the evenings for painting, and I learn the business approach to imagery and visual. When you’re working behind someone else’s brand, you learn a whole new side of things, and new perspective on visual interpretation in a way that is both positive and harmful to the brand. From that respect, it keeps me grounded with a wider spectrum of people. When you’re working on paintings in a studio, you have a much smaller subset of those perspectives. As the artist though, you have full autonomy, and I love that ability to realize a vision in its entirety. I’ve never believed in having to have just one singularity, but rather a progression in one’s day- it keeps me constantly learning!
Drew:
What is your favorite painting and why?
Veru:
+Iago.jpg)
Within the series All The World’s a Stage, my favorite painting is Honest (Iran) Iago. Here I compare the Iranian president Ahmadinejad to the character of Iago, who tempts Othello into believing his wife has had an affair. The colors are beautiful and the contrast created visually by two views of Iran was exciting. I painted it in 2007/2008 before the re-election of 2009, and that prediction of him manipulating the government and the people came true. The fact that he was able to carry the election, and the way he’s reacted to the UN probe on Uranium enrichment is really startling, and it’s an affirmation of the painting’s prediction.My all time favorite painting of mine is one I did called A Prayer in Sacre Couer (pictured above with hands comment). Thematically and visually, it’s about a woman who lights a candle, and her hands become the Church. It’s about taking control of one’s spirituality that transcends religious dogma. I had envisioned this is what the mother Mary might have done many years after her son Jesus was resurrected- Somewhere quiet and by herself. I think it is a very personal piece, at a time in my life where some major life decisions were very raw, so it means more to me than just the pure execution of the work.
Drew:
Thank you for your time. In parting, tell us a bit what you want to do with your paintings in the near and distant future.
Veru:
Thank you for having me. Next on the horizon, I’m in the midst of an underwater painting series that looks into different Alternative Energy sources. Often times, Alternative Energy or Clean Tech can seem theoretical or abstract. I wanted to get personal, and look at our daily activities of swimming, kissing, loving, growing and contrast it with how to think innovatively about new means of energy sources. My ultimate vision is to turn a gallery or space into an underwater think tank!