Artist Monography - Aakash Nihalani by Claire Bula

Aakash Nihalani

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Aakash Nihalani Claire Bula With Anna, Julia, and Samantha Williams

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And a foreward by Christine Williams

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Boston University Art Gallery Boston, MA

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Distributed by Boston University Press Boston, MA

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Curators Anna, Julia, and Samantha Williams Exhibition Management Elizabeth Neary Catalogue Editor Christine Williams Exhibition and Lighting Design Michael Rosenberg and Kari Everson Exhibition Branding Chrissy Casavant and Sloane Schuchman Publication made possible by Bank of America First publicshed in 2020 by the Boston University Art Gallery 808 Commonwealthe Avenue Boston, MA 02115 and distributed by Boston University Press 808 Commonwealthe Avenue Boston, MA 02115 ISBN [to come] Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data [to come]

e Tabl Acknowlegements

Title Goes Here With Anna, Julia, and Samantha Williams And a foreward by Christine Williams

129

Plates

162

Exhibition History

170

Selected Biography

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Index

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Directors Foreward

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Fascinated with magic as a child, New-York based artist Aakash Nihalani is now famous for his illusional tape art. Seemingly floating in mid-air, his fluorescent isometric forms invade various public spaces from buildings to pristine forests. His 3D cubes, rectangular cuboids and other geometric shapes are created with luminescent tape and they seem to jump out of their environment acting as a sort of urban trompe l’oeil. Altering viewer’s sense of perspective, these optical illusions enrich and reinvent the structure of the space they are mounted on. These cheeky designs transform urban spaces into playful environments, as they often invite the viewer to interact with them. Since the artist is working with tape, his artworks are temporal and flexible. Fascinated with magic as a child, New-York based artist Aakash Nihalani is now famous for his illusional tape art. Seemingly floating in mid-air, his fluorescent isometric forms invade various public spaces from buildings to pristine forests. His 3D cubes, rectangular cuboids and other geometric shapes are created with luminescent tape and they seem to jump out of their environment acting as a sort of urban trompe l’oeil. Altering viewer’s sense of perspective, these optical illusions enrich and reinvent the structure of the space they are mounted on. These cheeky designs transform urban spaces into playful environments, as they often invite the viewer to interact with them. Since the artist is working with tape, his artworks are temporal and flexible. Fascinated with magic as a child, New-York based artist Aakash Nihalani is now famous for his illusional tape art. Seemingly floating in mid-air, his fluorescent isometric forms invade various public spaces from buildings to pristine forests. His 3D cubes, rectangular cuboids and other geometric shapes are created with luminescent tape and they seem to jump out of their environment acting as a sort of urban trompe l’oeil. Altering viewer’s sense of perspective, these optical illusions enrich and reinvent the structure of the space they are mounted on. These cheeky designs transform urban spaces into playful environments, as they often invite the viewer to interact with them. Since the artist is working with tape, his artworks are temporal and flexible. Fascinated with magic as a child, New-York based artist Aakash Nihalani is now famous for his illusional tape art. Seemingly floating in mid-air, his fluorescent isometric forms invade various public spaces from buildings to pristine forests. His 3D cubes, rectangular cuboids and other geometric shapes are created with luminescent tape and they seem to jump out of their environment acting as a sort of urban trompe l’oeil. Altering viewer’s sense of perspective, these optical illusions enrich and reinvent the structure of the space they are mounted on. These cheeky designs transform urban spaces into playful environments, as they often invite the viewer to interact with them. Since the artist is working with tape, his artworks are temporal and flexible. Fascinated with magic as a child, New-York based artist Aakash Nihalani is now famous for his illusional tape art. Seemingly floating in mid-air, his fluorescent isometric forms invade various public spaces from buildings to pristine forests.

Field (orange), 2014, acrylic, flashe, mixed media on canvas, corrugated plastic, wood, magnets, 45.5 x 38.5″

10 This Page Field (orange), 2014, acrylic, flashe, mixed media on canvas, corrugated plastic, wood, magnets, 45.5 x 38.5″ Opposite Page Field (orange), 2014, acrylic, flashe, mixed media on canvas, corrugated plastic, wood, magnets, 45.5 x 38.5″

mounted on. These cheeky designs transform urban spaces into playful environments, as they often invite the viewer to interact with them. Since the artist is working with tape, his artworks are temporal and flexible. Fascinated with magic as a child, New-York based artist Aakash Nihalani is now famous for his illusional tape art. Seemingly floating in mid-air, his fluorescent isometric forms invade various public spaces from buildings to pristine forests. His 3D cubes, rectangular cuboids and other geometric shapes are created with luminescent tape and they seem to jump out of their environment acting as a sort of urban trompe l’oeil. Altering viewer’s sense of perspective, these optical illusions enrich and reinvent the structure of the space they are mounted on. These cheeky designs transform urban spaces into playful environments, as they often invite the viewer to interact with them. Since the artist is working with tape, his artworks are temporal and flexible. Fascinated with magic as a child, New-York based artist Aakash Nihalani is now famous for his illusional tape art. Seemingly floating in mid-air, his fluorescent isometric forms invade various public spaces from buildings to pristine forests.

Field (orange), 2014, acrylic, flashe, mixed media on canvas, corrugated plastic, wood, magnets, 45.5 x 38.5″

Fascinated with magic as a child, New-York based artist Aakash Nihalani is now famous for his illusional tape art. Seemingly floating in mid-air, his fluorescent isometric forms invade various public spaces from buildings to pristine forests. His 3D cubes, rectangular cuboids and other geometric shapes are created with luminescent tape and they seem to jump out of their environment acting as a sort of urban trompe l’oeil. Altering viewer’s sense of perspective, these optical illusions enrich and reinvent the structure of the space they are mounted on. These cheeky designs transform urban spaces into playful environments, as they often invite the viewer to interact with them. Since the artist is working with tape, his artworks are temporal and flexible. Fascinated with magic as a child, New-York based artist Aakash Nihalani is now famous for his illusional tape art. Seemingly floating in mid-air, his fluorescent isometric forms invade various public spaces from buildings to pristine forests. His 3D cubes, rectangular cuboids and other geometric shapes are created with luminescent tape and they seem to jump out of their environment acting as a s ort of urban trompe l’oeil. Altering viewer’s sense of perspective, these optical illusions enrich and reinvent the structure of the space they are mounted on. These cheeky designs transform urban spaces into playful environments, as they often invite the viewer to interact with them. Since the artist is working with tape, his artworks are temporal and flexible. Fascinated with magic as a child, New-York based artist Aakash Nihalani is now famous for his illusional tape art. Seemingly floating in mid-air, his fluorescent isometric forms invade various public spaces from buildings to pristine forests. His 3D cubes, rectangular cuboids and other geometric shapes are created with luminescent tape and they seem to jump out of their environment acting as a sort of urban trompe l’oeil. Altering viewer’s sense of perspective, these optical illusions enrich and reinvent the structure of the space they are mounted on. These cheeky designs transform urban spaces into playful environments, as they often invite the viewer to interact with them. Since the artist is working with tape, his artworks are temporal and flexible. Fascinated with magic as a child, New-York based artist Aakash Nihalani is now famous for his illusional tape art. Seemingly floating in mid-air, his fluorescent isometric forms invade various public spaces from buildings to pristine forests. His 3D cubes, rectangular cuboids and other geometric shapes are created with luminescent tape and they seem to jump out of their environment acting as a

sort of urban trompe l’oeil. Altering viewer’s sense of perspective, these optical illusions enrich and reinvent the structure of the space they are mounted on. These cheeky designs transform urban spaces into playful environments, as they often invite the viewer to interact with them. Since the artist is working with tape, his artworks are temporal and flexible. Fascinated with magic as a child, New-York based artist Aakash Nihalani is now famous for his illusional tape art. Seemingly floating in mid-air, his fluorescent isometric forms invade various public spaces from buildings to pristine forests. His 3D cubes, rectangular cuboids and other geometric shapes are created with luminescent tape and they seem to jump out of their environment acting as a sort of urban trompe l’oeil. Altering viewer’s sense of perspective, these optical illusions enrich and reinvent the structure of the space they are mounted on. These cheeky designs transform urban spaces into playful environments, as they often invite the viewer to interact with them. Since the artist is working with tape, his artworks are temporal and flexible. Fascinated with magic as a child, New-York based artist Aakash Nihalani is now famous for his illusional tape art. Seemingly floating in mid-air, his fluorescent isometric forms invade various public spaces from buildings to pristine forests. His 3D cubes, rectangular cuboids and other geometric shapes are created with luminescent tape and they seem to jump out of their environment acting as a sort of urban trompe l’oeil. Altering viewer’s sense of perspective, these optical illusions enrich and reinvent the structure of the space they are mounted on. These cheeky designs transform urban spaces into playful environments, as they often invite the viewer to interact with them. Since the artist is working with tape, his artworks are temporal and flexible.

Essay One Aakash Nihalani is a unique New York-based artist known for his 3D geometric illusions made with tape. He was born in 1986 in Queens and is currently based in Brooklyn. He received in 2008 a BFA from Steinhardt School in New York. Take one look at the work of Aakash Nihalani and you will see the essence of what art is: the ability to catch someone’s attention at a moment’s notice. Nihalani uses bright, bold lines at the forefront of all of his art as a means of visually creating 3D images on two-dimensional surfaces. The repetition of isometric squares and rectangles becomes visually pleasing to the eye, conveying complexities such as movement and space by something so simple as the placement of a line. Initially, your focus is drawn to the use of repetition and varying patterns, yet Nihalani has taken it one step further. For example, by incorporating a live model, Nihalani successfully delivers an additional element to his art, transforming the viewer’s immediate thoughts into what he intended to convey for that specific piece. Nihalani’s art is clearly meant to captivate the viewer’s attention. Part of what makes Nihalani’s works so appealing is the intentional interplay between the conventional shapes he utilizes and the unconventional means of portraying them to his audience. Your brain is expecting a geometric arrangement, but in Nihalani’s reality, you are getting much more than that: a break from what is anticipated. Additionally, through the use of methodical angle placement and layout, Nihalani portrays both action and depth that easily transfixes the viewer. Nihalani wants to give people a momentary escape from the routine, and his bold graphics do just that. The viewer is given a momentary opportunity to live a little more playfully, within the “new” space created by Nihalani. People can enter freely into these spaces and disconnect from their daily reality for a few unexpected moments. Aakash Nihalani places his graphics around New York City in a selective way, intending them to highlight aspects of the city itself. Hailing from New York, the influence of the city is carried throughout Nihalani’s works, using buildings, sideways, and doorways among other objects as a vehicle to deliver his art’s message: train your mind to look beyond the mundane in life and allow it to become something extraordinary. Aakash Nihalani has no “highbrow” philosophy or communication to push on his viewers. He states on his website that “People need to understand how it is, isn’t how it has to be. My work is created in reaction to what we readily encounter in our lives…I’m just connecting the dots differently to make my own picture. Others need to see that they can create too, connecting their own dots, in their own places.”

In 2013, Nihalani was commissioned by the Parrish Art Museum in Water Mill, New York, to create three ephemeral tape installations for their Herzog & de Meuron-designed museum’s exterior wall. The pieces could be appreciated during their annual Midsummer Party and throughout the summer months, coinciding with his solo exhibition Aaranged at Tripoli Gallery in Southampton. Nihalani’s colorful work has been exhibited internationally and featured in a number of publications including: The New York Times, The Times of India, Vogue India and artinfo.com. He has been part of group exhibitions throughout New York, Rome, New Delhi and London, and recently featured in the Urban Nation 2018 exhibition UN-DERSTAND The Power of Art as a Social Architect in Berlin.

Figure 1 fields (green), 2014, acrylic, flashe, and mixed media on canvas, corrugated plastic, wood, magnets, 33.25 x 52.5″

Figure 2 fields (blue), 2014, acrylic, flashe, and mixed media on canvas, corrugated plastic, wood, magnets, 33 x 62″

All of Nihalani’s works, whether they be indoors, outdoors, or through collaboration, are visually striking messages, capturing motion and space through varied media such as sculpture, painting, print, or by interactive means. One of the most important things that make an artist stand out from the crowd is his signature style. Aakash Nihalani is definitely one of those artists. However, his break-though story didn’t begin too long ago. Being a child of Indian parents, Nihalani was from a very young age pushed towards law and medicine. Eventually, when the time came for going to college, he went to political science and business. Soon he realised that he needed a change in his life, and with the encouragement from his colleague, Nihalani moved to the art program. This is where his artistic development started. In an interview given to Cool Hunting, Nihalani discussed his creative beginnings, his unique technique and the work in the streets. The Power of the Tape If you saw some of Nihalani’s works on the Internet, there is a big chance you’ll think he’s just another Photoshop expert. However, if you happen to run into his fluorescent installations or two-dimensional shapes in a gallery or in the streets, you’ll be stunned by the fact that Nihalani’s just very good at what he does. He uses simple materials like tape, plastics, magnets and wood to create geometric shapes that appear to be Photoshopped into the real world. ‘‘When I started working with tape it was completely awkward and weird and new. It opened me up to experimenting and feeling free and to not compare. I think comparing and feeling like you have to follow what somebody else did can lead you into results that they got instead of your own. The tape became a great way of bridging the gap between creation and exhibition. After the first tape installation in the gallery I was addicted. I plastered the NYU buildings, the janitors were pissed off at me, but it was easy to take down’’, Nihalani remembers. Street Art After realising what he could do with only one tape, Nihalani took the work to the streets. Even though he never felt completely comfortable with the process and the mediums of it, the tape was perfect. ‘‘I could use my name, work in the daylight, if the cops stopped me I could say, “Look, it’s just tape,” and I can take it down and walk away. There’s this removal of the aggression, which freed me up a lot. From the beginning, a lot of the work had the mentality of a graffiti artist. Then I think over time, the work started to become a lot more site-specific, a lot more reactionary. It started to have this narrative quality to it. I always saw the graphics as becoming personified. You can look at this narrative and attribute your own feelings to the scene’’, Nihalani says. Photoshop Effect The artist thinks that the key to the ‘Photoshop effect’ comes from the fact that the fluorescent colors and elements he uses don’t normally exist in the nature. ‘Beyond these inherent qualities, when I’m making the work there’s this point of perspective, a vantage point. Where the work attains this volume to it, a three-dimensional quality to it even though it’s flat. That graphic within the space of reality, gives such a contrast in the visual language. It automatically looks digital, like I placed it in there with a computer’, Nihalani concluded.

Aakash Nihalani is a unique New York-based artist known for his 3D geometric illusions made with tape. He was born in 1986 in Queens and is currently based in Brooklyn. He received in 2008 a BFA from Steinhardt School in New York. Take one look at the work of Aakash Nihalani and you will see the essence of what art is: the ability to catch someone’s attention at a moment’s notice. Nihalani uses bright, bold lines at the forefront of all of his art as a means of visually creating 3D images on two-dimensional surfaces. The repetition of isometric squares and rectangles becomes visually pleasing to the eye, conveying complexities such as movement and space by something so simple as the placement of a line. Initially, your focus is drawn to the use of repetition and varying patterns, yet Nihalani has taken it one step further. For example, by incorporating a live model, Nihalani successfully delivers an additional element to his art, transforming the viewer’s immediate thoughts into what he intended to convey for that specific piece. Nihalani’s art is clearly meant to captivate the viewer’s attention. Part of what makes Nihalani’s works so appealing is the intentional interplay between the conventional shapes he utilizes and the unconventional means of portraying them to his audience. Your brain is expecting a geometric arrangement, but in Nihalani’s reality, you are getting much more than that: a break from what is anticipated. Additionally, through the use of methodical angle placement and layout, Nihalani portrays both action and depth that easily transfixes the viewer. Nihalani wants to give people a momentary escape from the routine, and his bold graphics do just that. The viewer is given a momentary opportunity to live a little more playfully, within the “new” space created by Nihalani. People can enter freely into these spaces and disconnect from their daily reality for a few

Figure 3 detail of field (pink), 2014

Figure 4 field (pink), 2014, acrylic, flashe, and mixed media on canvas, corrugated plastic, wood, magnets, 40 x 44.5″

unexpected moments. Aakash Nihalani places his graphics around New York City in a selective way, intending them to highlight aspects of the city itself. Hailing from New York, the influence of the city is carried throughout Nihalani’s works, using buildings, sideways, and doorways among other objects as a vehicle to deliver his art’s message: train your mind to look beyond the mundane in life and allow it to become something extraordinary. Aakash Nihalani has no “highbrow” philosophy or communication to push on his viewers. He states on his website that “People need to understand how it is, isn’t how it has to be. My work is created in reaction to what we readily encounter in our lives…I’m just connecting the dots differently to make my own picture. Others need to see that they can create too, connecting their own dots, in their own places.” In 2013, Nihalani was commissioned by the Parrish Art Museum in Water Mill, New York, to create three ephemeral tape installations for their Herzog & de Meuron-designed museum’s exterior wall. The pieces could be appreciated during their annual Midsummer Party and throughout the summer months, coinciding with his solo exhibition Aaranged at Tripoli Gallery in Southampton. Nihalani’s colorful work has been exhibited internationally and featured in a number of publications including: The New York Times, The Times of India, Vogue India and artinfo.com. He has been part of group exhibitions throughout New York, Rome, New Delhi and London, and recently featured in the Urban Nation 2018 exhibition UN-DERSTAND The Power of Art as a Social Architect in Berlin. Aakash Nihalani is a unique New York-based artist known for his 3D geometric illusions made with tape. He was born in 1986 in Queens and is currently based in Brooklyn. He received in 2008 a BFA from Steinhardt School in New York. Take one look at the work of Aakash Nihalani and you will see the essence of what art is: the ability to catch someone’s attention at a moment’s notice. Nihalani uses bright, bold lines at the forefront of all of his art as a means of visually creating 3D images on two-dimensional surfaces. The repetition of isometric squares and rectangles becomes visually pleasing to the eye, conveying complexities such as movement and space by something so simple as the placement of a line. Initially, your focus is drawn to the use of repetition and varying patterns, yet Nihalani has taken it one step further. For example, by incorporating a live model, Nihalani successfully delivers an additional element to his art, transforming the viewer’s immediate thoughts into what he intended to convey for that specific piece. Nihalani’s art is clearly meant to captivate the viewer’s attention. Part of what makes Nihalani’s works so appealing is the intentional interplay between the conventional shapes he utilizes and the unconventional means of portraying them to his audience. Your brain is expecting a geometric arrangement, but in Nihalani’s reality, you are getting much more than that: a break from what is anticipated. Additionally, through the use of methodical angle placement and layout, Nihalani portrays both action and depth that easily transfixes the viewer. streets.

Figure 5 field (yellow), 2014, acrylic, flashe, and mixed media on canvas, corrugated plastic, wood, magnets, 32.5 x 20″

Essay Two Aakash Nihalani is a unique New York-based artist known for his 3D geometric illusions made with tape. He was born in 1986 in Queens and is currently based in Brooklyn. He received in 2008 a BFA from Steinhardt School in New York. Take one look at the work of Aakash Nihalani and you will see the essence of what art is: the ability to catch someone’s attention at a moment’s notice. Nihalani uses bright, bold lines at the forefront of all of his art as a means of visually creating 3D images on two-dimensional surfaces. The repetition of isometric squares and rectangles becomes visually pleasing to the eye, conveying complexities such as movement and space by something so simple as the placement of a line. Initially, your focus is drawn to the use of repetition and varying patterns, yet Nihalani has taken it one step further. For example, by incorporating a live model, Nihalani successfully delivers an additional element to his art, transforming the viewer’s immediate thoughts into what he intended to convey for that specific piece. Nihalani’s art is clearly meant to captivate the viewer’s attention.

to understand how it is, isn’t how it has to be. My work is created in reaction to what we readily encounter in our lives…I’m just connecting the dots differently to make my own picture. Others need to see that they can create too, connecting their own dots, in their own places.” In 2013, Nihalani was commissioned by the Parrish Art Museum in Water Mill, New York, to create three ephemeral tape installations for their Herzog & de Meuron-designed museum’s exterior wall. The pieces could be appreciated during their annual Midsummer Party and throughout the summer months, coinciding with his solo exhibition Aaranged at Tripoli Gallery in Southampton. Nihalani’s colorful work has been exhibited internationally and featured in a number of publications including: The New York Times, The Times of India, Vogue India and artinfo.com. He has been part of group exhibitions throughout New York, Rome, New Delhi and London, and recently featured in the Urban Nation 2018 exhibition UN-DERSTAND The Power of Art as a Social Architect in Berlin.

Part of what makes Nihalani’s works so appealing is the intentional interplay between the conventional shapes he utilizes and the unconventional means of portraying them to his audience. Your brain is expecting a geometric arrangement, but in Nihalani’s reality, you are getting much more than that: a break from what is anticipated. Additionally, through the use of methodical angle placement and layout, Nihalani portrays both action and depth that easily transfixes the viewer. Nihalani wants to give people a momentary escape from the routine, and his bold graphics do just that. The viewer is given a momentary opportunity to live a little more playfully, within the “new” space created by Nihalani. People can enter freely into these spaces and disconnect from their daily reality for a few unexpected moments. Aakash Nihalani places his graphics around New York City in a selective way, intending them to highlight aspects of the city itself. Hailing from New York, the influence of the city is carried throughout Nihalani’s works, using buildings, sideways, and doorways among other objects as a vehicle to deliver his art’s message: train your mind to look beyond the mundane in life and allow it to become something extraordinary.

Aakash Nihalani has no “highbrow” philosophy or communication to push on his viewers. He states on his website that “People need

Figure 1 fields (green), 2014, acrylic, flashe, and mixed media on canvas, corrugated plastic, wood, magnets, 33.25 x 52.5″

Figure 3

island (pink), 2014, acrylic, flashe, and mixed media on canvas, corrugated plastic, wood, 36 x 36″

Nihalani uses bright, bold lines at the forefront of all of his art as a means of visually creating 3D images on two-dimensional surfaces.

The repetition of isometric squares and rectangles becomes visually pleasing to the eye, conveying complexities such as movement and space by something so simple as the placement of a line. Initially, your focus is drawn to the use of repetition and varying patterns, yet Nihalani has taken it one step further. For example, by incorporating a live model, Nihalani successfully delivers an additional element to his art, transforming the viewer’s immediate thoughts into what he intended to convey for that specific piece. Nihalani’s art is clearly meant to captivate the viewer’s attention.

Figure 2 spaced, 2014, tape and paint (installation at wunderkammern)

Figure 5 peekaboo, 2014, acrylic, flashe, and mixed media on canvas, corrugated plastic, wood, 36 x 36″ Nihalani wants to give people a momentary escape from the routine, and his bold graphics do just that. The viewer is given a momentary opportunity to live a little more playfully, within the “new” space created by Nihalani. People can enter freely into these spaces and disconnect from their daily reality for a few unexpected moments. Aakash Nihalani places his graphics around New York City in a selective way, intending them to highlight aspects of the city itself. Hailing from New York, the influence of the city is carried throughout Nihalani’s works, using buildings, sideways, and doorways among other objects as a vehicle to deliver his art’s message: train your mind to look beyond the mundane in life and allow it to become something extraordinary.

Aakash Nihalani has no “highbrow” philosophy or communication to push on his viewers. He states on his website that “People need to understand how it is, isn’t how it has to be. My work is created in reaction to what we readily encounter in our lives…I’m just connecting the dots differently to make my own picture. Others need to see that they can create too, connecting their own dots, in their own places.” (par. 4)

Figure 4 passage, 2014, tape, corrugated plastic, flashe (installation at wunderkammern)

Figure 6 island (pink), 2014, acrylic, flashe, and mixed media on canvas, corrugated plastic, wood, 36 x 36″

exhibitions throughout New York, Rome, New Delhi and London, and recently featured in the Urban Nation 2018 exhibition UN-DERSTAND The Power of Art as a Social Architect in Berlin. All of Nihalani’s works, whether they be indoors, outdoors, or through collaboration, are visually striking messages, capturing motion and space through varied media such as sculpture, painting, print, or by interactive means.

One of the most important things that make an artist stand out from the crowd is his signature style. Aakash Nihalani is definitely one of those artists. However, his break-though story didn’t begin too long ago. Being a child of Indian parents, Nihalani was from a very young age pushed towards law and medicine. Eventually, when the time came for going to college, he went to political science and business. Soon he realised that he needed a change in his life, and with the encouragement from his colleague, Nihalani moved to the art program. This is where his artistic development started. In an

Figure 7 island (pink), 2014, acrylic, flashe, and mixed media on canvas, corrugated plastic, wood, 36 x 36″

interview given to Cool Hunting, Nihalani discussed his creative beginnings, his unique technique and the work in the streets.

The Power of the Tape If you saw some of Nihalani’s works on the Internet, there is a big chance you’ll think he’s just another Photoshop expert. However, if you happen to run into his fluorescent installations or twodimensional shapes in a gallery or in the streets, you’ll be stunned by the fact that Nihalani’s just very good at what he does. He uses

simple materials like tape, plastics, magnets and wood to create geometric shapes that appear to be Photoshopped into the real world. ‘‘When I started working with tape it was completely awkward and weird and new. It opened me up to experimenting and feeling free and to not compare. I think comparing and feeling like you have to follow what somebody else did can lead you into results that they got instead of your own. The tape became a great way of bridging the gap between creation and exhibition. After the first tape installation in the gallery I was addicted. I plastered the NYU

buildings, the janitors were pissed off at me, but it was easy to take down’’, Nihalani remembers. Street Art After realising what he could do with only one tape, Nihalani took the work to the streets. Even though he never felt completely comfortable with the process and the mediums of it, the tape was perfect. ‘‘I could use my name, work in the daylight, if the cops stopped me I could say, “Look, it’s just tape,” and I can take it down and walk away. There’s this removal of the aggression, which freed me up a lot. From the beginning, a lot of the work had the mentality of a graffiti artist. Then I think over time, the work started to become a lot more site-specific, a lot more reactionary. It started to have this narrative quality to it. I always saw the graphics as becoming personified. You can look at this narrative and attribute your own feelings to the scene’’, Nihalani says. Photoshop Effect The artist thinks that the key to the ‘Photoshop effect’ comes from the fact that the fluorescent colors and elements he uses don’t normally exist in the nature. ‘Beyond these inherent qualities, when I’m making the work there’s this point of perspective, a vantage point. Where the work attains this volume to it, a three-dimensional quality to it even though it’s flat. That graphic within the space of reality, gives such a contrast in the visual language. It automatically looks digital, like I placed it in there with a computer’, Nihalani concluded.

Figure 8 island (pink), 2014, acrylic, flashe, and mixed media on canvas, corrugated plastic, wood, 36 x 36″

Cre

dits

Image One - Courtesy of the personal collection of Aakash Nihalani

Image Two - On loan from the Bank of America Art Collection, Bank of America Foundation for the Arts.

Image One - Courtesy of the personal collection of Aakash Nihalani

Image Three - On loan from the Bank of America Art Collection, Bank of America Foundation for the Arts.

Image Three - On loan from the personal collection of Mark J. Coogan.

Image One - On loan from the Bank of America Art Collection, Bank of America Foundation for the Arts.

Becsey, L., Wachsberger, P., Samuels, S., et al (Directors). (2008). In the valley of Elah. [DVD]. Warner Home Video.

Ginsberg, J. P., Ayers, E., Burriss, L., & Powell, D. A. (2008). Discriminative delay Pavlovian eyeblink conditioning in veterans with and without post-traumatic stress disorder. Journal of Anxiety Disorders, 22, 809-823. https://doi:10.1016/j. janxdis.2007.08.009

Glantz, A. (2009). The war comes home: Washington’s battle against America’s veterans. University of California Press.

Jakupcak, M., Luterek, J., Hunt, S., Conybeare, D., & McFall, M. (2008). Post-traumatic stress and its relationship to physical health functioning in a sample of Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans seeking post-deployment VA health care. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 196, 425-428.

Jensen, G. & Wiest, A. A. (2001). War in the age of technology myriad faces of modern armed conflict. New York University Press.

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