Subhash Awchat

Infobox Artist
name = Subhash Awchat


imagesize =
caption = Subhash Awchat,
birthname = Subhash Awchat
birthdate = 1960
location = Pune, Maharashtra, India
nationality = Indian
field = Painter
movement = Contemporary
influenced by = Vincent van Gogh
influenced =
works =

Subhash Awchat is an Indian artist and author based in Mumbai. [cite news |title=Shabaash! Subash |url=http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/33719795.cms |work=The Times of India |date=8 January 2003 |accessdate=2008-10-03 ]

His book "Studio" has been collated from diaries that Awchat wrote over a period of 20 years. [cite news |title=Different strokes |url=http://cities.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=129016 |work=Indian Express |date=13 May 2005 |accessdate=2008-10-03 ] The diaries apart, Awchat's apartment too is, in more ways than one, a diary of his efforts and cogitations as an artist. There are canvases from the Clown series, on which Awchat had worked intermittently from 1986 to 1991, there are other reminisces on canvas - some vibrant the other muted monochromes. Awchat started off as a graphic designer, but soon ennui set in and he decided to "quit selling shampoos" and took up painting instead. Awchat's writing is an offshoot of his art, in that, each time the artist in him is flummoxed by the world around him that obstinately refuses translation onto the canvas, he resorts to the vise of words that pack expression and impression into their narrow breadth. "Studio" though is not the first time Awchat has taken to transcribing the world around him. Prior to "Studio", he has already written a novel "Madam",cite news |title=To Smita, in memoriam |url=http://cities.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=213231 |work=Indian Express |date=15 December 2006 |accessdate=2008-10-03 ] a collection of short stories and a book of essays, among other things.

"Studio" is dedicated to Smita Patil and prefacing the orchestration of random thoughts, jottings and sketches is a poem dedicated to Patil who was a childhood friend of Awchat's.

Awchat is hardly a recalcitrant man and he readily talks about the book, "Studio does not explicitly deal with my art, but the undercurrent of art is forever present. Here in my own way. I have expressed my idea about art among other things. I have tried in my own way to explore the need for an artist to step out of the immediate urban microcosm and into the rural India."

Awchat's idea of the artist is almost Aristotlean in its insistence on the artist's art reflecting the artist himself. Or more appropriately, as Awchat himself puts it, "I'm a human being first, an artist next. I believe a good human being makes a good artist, a bad human being a bad artist." Just what is the artist's understanding of what is good and what is bad is left unsaid. Presently Awchat is working on a 20 x 60 feet commission, which has him all knotted up. But what has him unwinding though is the school he is planning on setting up in Alibaug, which will train children in the ways of art. His art, of course, is maintaining a concurrent course and is forever progressing.

References

Persondata
NAME= Subhash, Awchat
ALTERNATIVE NAMES= Subhash, Awchat
SHORT DESCRIPTION= Indian Symbolist painter
DATE OF BIRTH= 1960
PLACE OF BIRTH= Maharashtra, India