A winner at Red Bull World Doodle Art a decade back, artist Santanu Hazarika is back in the competition, but this time as a judge. The multidisciplinary visual artist, who has collaborated with Raftaar, Divine and Ritviz, was in town as a judge for the Red Bull Doodle Art national final. He spoke with us about doodles and its popularity, the Gauhati Art Project and more.
Do you think doodle art has grown popular over the years in India?
Definitely. We have all worked hard to make doodle a popular form of art. When you say doodle art, people normally consider it as random scribbles, which made us do a bunch of workshops to create more awareness about the art, what it is, and how the subconscious mind goes hand in hand with creating something beautiful, not only for the sake of art but also for the sake of mental health and peace.
How easy or difficult has your doodling journey been after your win?
Winning Red Bull Doodle Art was a starting point for me but the real struggle started after that. When I won it, I was still an engineering student with no knowledge or background in design. But people always start somewhere. I got a contract with Red Bull International and an opportunity to design tees and other things. It’s been a long learning curve for me and even now, I’m still learning. So I think the struggle is still on, I won’t lie about it, but I’m much more comfortable with it now.
Tell us about Gauhati Art Project.
Gauhati Art Project (GAP) is sort of an art collective. I come from Guwahati, and back home, there was not much awareness of art or design. A bunch of my friends and I were artists and architects, and we never had mentors to provide knowledge about the types of art and what we needed to study. This is something that we started to create awareness and it’s our way of giving back to the community and the people so that these kids don’t have to face the problems we had while growing up. With GAP, we do workshops and try to bridge the ‘gap’ between different arts, in the Northeast and the country.
Any exciting collaboration in the pipeline?
A bunch of them, mostly to do with tech which I, unfortunately, cannot say much about. Most of them are sort of new age which is very immersive, tech-savvy and futuristic.