Santanu Hazarika on Zubeen Garg, NFTs, and the future of Indian art

I think the artwork really managed to capture Zubeen’s essence. He was someone with incredibly strong opinions, yet carried himself with the most graceful demeanour, voice, and approach to truth. The artwork reflects his deep love for nature while also portraying his powerful presence and his almost angelic persona; it’s a mix of both strength and serenity. While creating it, I found myself returning to my early days of illustration, when I used to work a lot with ink. This piece is very special to me because I grew up listening to Zubeen’s music. Years ago, I had made an artwork called Maya, inspired by his song Maya, and that piece was also influenced by Richey Beckett’s illustration style. He’s a huge inspiration for me. This tribute combines that nostalgic style with a sense of moving forward, blending the past and the future to create something meaningful. I honestly didn’t expect the response it received. It’s been incredibly heartwarming to see how the entire state resonated with it. I had shared the artwork for free public use, providing the hi-res file for anyone to download. People printed it out for tributes, displayed it in public spaces, made T-shirts and merchandise, and used it widely. Even now, I still see so many fans with the artwork as their profile picture, which is beautiful. What makes this even more special is that Zubeen was always someone who championed artists and true talent. And it’s not just about my work after his passing, every artist who created something inspired by him or dedicated to him, has received so much love and recognition. In a way, it feels like this was his final act of supporting and uplifting artists from Assam, giving everyone a platform even beyond his lifetime.

Back when I was doing engineering, dropping out was seen as something non-linear, almost unconventional. But now, it’s almost become a cliché, like you do engineering just to figure out what you actually want to do next. Back then, though, it was definitely a big deal for me to make that shift because it was a huge gamble.

Firstly, I come from Assam, where there wasn’t much dialogue around art and design. Secondly, I was an outsider in the art world, even in mainland India. I had no head start, no safety net; it was just a complete leap of faith. What really helped me through that time was the community, artists, musicians, friends, and the whole underground scene back home. They genuinely supported my work and inspired me to keep going. Sometimes, all it takes is a bit of appreciation.

When others start believing in you, you slowly begin to believe in yourself too. It builds up over time. The real turning point for me came after I won the Red Bull Doodle Art Championship in 2014. That gave me the confidence to leap into doing art full-time. It made me realise that I’m actually good at this. I can make a career out of it. It also helped me address and clear a lot of doubts my friends and family had about my career choices.

The concept behind my posters is to create three different travel posters inspired by my recent trip. Lufthansa kindly sent me to New York to draw inspiration from the city and translate that experience into artwork upon my return. The three posters each reflect different aspects of the city that stood out to me. The first poster is about Times Square and the high energy of the city. You see street performers, athletes doing flips, and most of them are immigrants.

It’s incredible to witness how alive the city feels, nothing beats the essence of Times Square. The second poster explores the intersection of high art, like museum pieces, and street art, and how they feed into each other. This poster is a tribute to the Met, which houses some of the world’s most iconic museum pieces, and the Bushwick district, where the street art movement began.

Every wall, corner, and block in Bushwick is covered in graffiti, and many of these pieces are now gradually making their way into museums like MoMA. This poster reflects the beautiful irony of how we perceive art and how the city serves as a foundation for transitional movements and art forms that influence one another. The third poster is all about food. New York is famously known for pastrami, cheesecake, and pizza slices. In this poster, architectural structures are interwoven with giant food elements pepperoni, pizza slices, and more, highlighting the city’s unique collision of urban life and culinary culture.

All three posters will be showcased at Art Mumbai. In terms of process, I used a hybrid approach, combining hand-drawn elements with AI-generated textures, elements, and backgrounds. This blend of traditional and digital techniques allowed me to compose the posters in a way that merges both worlds.

Back then, and honestly even now to a large extent, I used to do almost everything by myself. I’m someone who likes to micromanage and be involved in every step of the process. The biggest change now is that while the mediums keep evolving, I’ve learned to trust the skills of other people. I have an amazing assistant, Kevin, who’s an artist himself and takes care of some of my projects.

I also outsource certain parts of the work. These days, I mostly take on the role of creative director for most of my projects, whereas earlier, I would sit down and do everything from scratch, start to finish. With a more established career now and, honestly, more bills to pay, I’ve had to take on more projects, which means I can’t focus on just one thing at a time like I used to. Earlier, I’d work on one or two projects and handle everything myself. Now, I’m usually juggling five or six different projects at once, which requires a lot more compartmentalising and delegation.

Another big shift is that the work itself has become faster and more efficient because I’ve grown technically and creatively. I’m able to execute, design, and promote my work much better than before. I’ve also started directing campaigns, both for brands and for my own designs, which wasn’t something I did back in the day. And of course, the role of social media has changed everything. When I started, platforms like Instagram were just emerging, and it wasn’t such a big part of the workflow. Now, it’s a whole separate category of work that I need to be actively involved in, which has added another layer to the creative process.

If you go through most of my pieces, you’ll notice that they lean towards a more gothic, unfinished, and raw style. My approach has always been heavily form-based, rooted in sketches and drawings. Lately, I’ve also started experimenting with AI, which has helped me speed up my creative process. I use a hybrid system where AI assists me in making certain parts of the work easier, like generating small elements, textures, or references that I would otherwise spend a lot of time sketching or downloading samples for. Now, I create, recompose, and build more art around these elements, which has opened up new possibilities in my workflow. As for recurring motifs, I definitely have a few obsessions that keep showing up. Tentacles, intestines, morphed and obscure forms, shapes with multiple eyes, a lot of hair, and human body parts fused with surreal elements — these are quite consistent in my visual language. There’s this blend of beauty and unease, almost like a surreal take on a “beautiful nightmare.” That’s probably the best way to describe it.

Maintaining my artistic voice while collaborating with major brands, musicians, or institutions is largely a problem-solving skill. When I work with other artists or brands, it becomes less about pure artistic expression and more about design-oriented solutions. It’s more about meeting objectives than creating for myself. That said, I always try to incorporate as much of my style as possible because, ultimately, any brand comes to me for my particular voice and aesthetic. That’s why they’re working with me in the first place.

Thankfully, since I established my style early on, it’s never been too difficult to bring that essence into collaborative projects. People respond to it, and I work with brands in a way that frames the project as a design challenge, which helps me stay grounded. I also compartmentalise. Not every commission will reflect my personal artistic style; some projects are purely commercial and completely different from my usual work. But on the personal side, where I have the freedom to implement my own style, I push it to the fullest extent. That’s where my artistic voice really shines.

Yes. First, I want to create a sense of shock and awe, and then I hope to guide them toward a deeper understanding of the piece. I want the audience to feel titillated, in a way that leaves them questioning their own reactions to what they’re seeing. It might spark happiness, sadness, or even a sense of darkness, though people often tell me there’s always an underlying sense of hope in my work. At the same time, I like to leave space for the viewer’s own feelings. I don’t want to dictate a specific emotion. Whether it’s anger, frustration, sadness, happiness, or something else entirely, it doesn’t matter as long as the work triggers an emotionally driven reaction; that’s what counts. Even if someone doesn’t fully understand the piece, or the reaction is subtle, that’s fine too. Most of my work is open to interpretation, but there’s usually a story embedded within it, much like traditional calendar art or historical illustrative works. Everything from religious imagery to esoteric symbols is coded in some way. I prefer my audience to discover the story themselves. My pieces are layered with details, and my ultimate goal is simply to evoke some kind of emotion, to spark a response, however it manifests.

Yes, the Konami x Neymar junior jersey is one of the biggest global projects I have worked on this year. I basically went back to my roots. Growing up in Assam, in Guwahati, football was our primary sport, not cricket. During the monsoon or just pleasant weather, we’d grab a ball and look for any empty patch of ground which we call a pokhar in Assamese; and play all day in the mud and dirt. We’d get hurt, sure, but that was part of it. We also always had a gamusa, our traditional woven textile, in every household. It’s a piece of cloth used to convey respect and for daily purposes, and it’s deeply symbolic of Assamese culture. I wanted to combine that sense of nostalgia with the textile style of my roots, the red-and-white print of the gamusa, and the idea of growing up along the riverbanks of the Brahmaputra. Merging these three concepts, the love of football, the cultural symbolism of the gamusa, and our connection to the Brahmaputra created a jersey that truly resonated with people from Assam. In essence, it was more than just a design; it became a Japan x Assam collaboration.

I’ve collaborated with many artists and brands, and every project comes with its own set of challenges. Most big projects have execution hurdles. For example, with Adidas, I’ve done multiple projects, but one that stands out is creating murals at the CP store in Delhi. Since I had to work with other artists and coordinate their efforts, it became as much a managerial task as an artistic one. Similarly, with a recent NBA project, I was designing the art campaign around customisation, promotion, and pre-event activities. I was essentially behind the camera, in front of the camera, designing, approving work, and communicating with the brand, acting as the moderator or project manager. For these projects, I have to wear multiple hats: the artist or talent, the designer, the project manager, and even the social media campaign designer. It’s a mix of roles that all feed into one ecosystem. The challenges vary depending on the project, but that’s what makes it exciting. I feel the best work comes out when you’re pushed up against a roadblock. You’re forced to find creative ways to overcome it, and that’s when you really shine.

My vision was essentially to celebrate and promote what the culture is all about. The idea was to bring the streets into the arena and highlight pop culture. Even though much of it has roots in the West, this culture has defined and inspired many of us: graffiti, street art, music, block parties, basketball, and more. The goal was to capture the essence of street art and bring it all together, which aligned perfectly with the NBA House event. For this, I assembled a crew of artists, all-star creatives representing art and the streets. I designed a bunch of stickers, videos, and reels, effectively taking on the role of creative director for the campaign leading up to the event. The campaign was designed to build pre-event buzz, culminating on the day itself. At the venue, we customised merch, did live spray-painting, and designed a series of basketballs. Each artist created a custom basketball, all hand-painted, and these were showcased at the venue. Aaquib Wani designed the platform and the overall event setup. It was essentially an exhibition of our work: the basketballs, hand-painted T-shirts, merchandise, and a live graffiti performance. Leading up to the event, we shot content at different graffiti spots, capturing each artist creating their own masterpiece. We then built a full social media campaign around this process, which helped bring the entire vision together

Honestly, I think there’s a lot of misunderstanding around what we should really be doing in this space. For me, NFTs were fascinating because they offered a way to completely democratise access to art. At the same time, I was drawn to the technology, the whole concept of blockchain, and how it works. It was incredibly exciting because I’ve always been very tech-forward and interested in new, tech-driven ideas. That’s what initially drew me into the space. When the NFT boom was happening, I wasn’t focused on the money or hype; I just wanted to create and share my work with a wider audience. That was the core of why I engaged with NFTs: the opportunity to make my art accessible to more people.

I see my role as bringing my roots to the global stage. Assam, and the Northeast in general, has often been hidden away, almost like the underdogs of India. For me, it’s about representing those underdogs being one of the misfits who want to stand up and say, “Yes, we exist. We have a voice. We have something special.” I want to share that with the world. I want to do this through whatever medium allows me to express it. Right now, it’s visual art, but that could change in the future. The medium may evolve, but the vision remains the same: to put our stories, culture, and creativity out there for everyone to see.