A wall as a canvas

Jas Charanjiva’s introduction to street art was accidental. When she received her first professional skateboard at the age of 12, the artwork on the bottom of it intrigued her. Since then, she has been involved in the street art movement and her works are a part of the visual landscape in Mumbai, Bengaluru, Delhi, Hydera-bad and San Francisco. According to Jas, street art is an opportunity to showcase her art to the common man. She says, “When I was growing up in California, graffiti and street art were a part of the environment. I was always drawn to the rebellious nature of it. Street art gave my artworks the opportunity to be seen and experienced by passers-by. This is what made me choose graffiti, where unlike in a gallery, you can touch and photograph the art.” Today, she and her husband Arjun Charanjiva have founded Kulture Shop, an online platform for graphic artists to present their artwork on tees, mugs and phone cases.

Jas’ works can be seen at D Cube in Hyderabad, and The Bagel Shop in Mumbai, among other stops. One of her artworks, which is prominently seen in Mumbai, is the image of the Pink Lady at Bandra. Jas created the work to symbolise the women who protested after the Jyothi gang-rape case. “The artwork represents the women who protested against the inhuman 2012 gang-rape,” says Jas. “I have pasted this figure across streets. This particular one I painted on the night the juvenile rapist was released. Since I was too angry, I asked my friend Poorna Jagannathan (who incidentally was a part of the play Nirbhaya) what she would like the Pink Lady to say if she could speak out. Poorna suggested, ‘Justice. We are coming to get it’. I have stuck to that slogan since.”

Jas often relies on the late David Bowie to help her churn out her creative works. However, she found herself in a quandary when she decided to bring out a collection on Bowie. The artist spent two weeks zeroing in on an idea to make sure non-Bowie fans too could connect with her artwork. She recalls, “I spent a lot of time during my childhood immersed in a different world and David Bowie was a big part of it. In 2011, I had to figure out the concept and technique for my Bowie collection. It took me two weeks to decide on it. I don’t ever take that long to come up with a concept but this time I needed to really think about it and ask myself a few questions and figure out what will I create and sell to people who may not know much about Bowie, if it all. In this case I cracked it with the second concept I came up with.”

And when she runs out of ideas, Jas relies on the art magazines that she has collected over the years, for inspiration. She says, “I feel I’m at my creative best when there are no expectations put on me. If there’s something hindering my process I typically take a break and go for a walk or I will flip through one of the art magazines I’ve collected throughout the years, just so something can excite me and spark an idea. It almost always helps.”

Jas considers balance and harmony to be central principles for her work. So much so that for her Bowie collection — which was created using the collage technique — she experimented with the procedure till “it didn’t feel right”. She says, “Some-times I look at something I’ve created and if it doesn’t feel right, I’ll keep playing around with it. I’ve always done this but I didn’t always know it was called harmony that I was trying to achieve — where all the parts of the piece form a whole. I created a collage for every little piece until I didn’t feel there was balance and harmony.”

Jas may have her roots in design, but she emphasises that design needs to serve a purpose. “To me, design is art that serves a function; and anything that serves a function needs to be designed. When I create statement art, I ask myself, ‘How do I make it impactful ’ That’s where design comes in.”