Sanjay Vora, who holds degrees in both painting and architecture, says his first creative impulses were not toward fine art, but music—particularly classical Indian music. Later on, Vora’s interest in both art and music developed simultaneously: “Both my music and art have been strongly influenced by my bicultural upbringing, the surrounding rural landscapes of my childhood and my nostalgic nature,” he has said. His process combines figurative imagery with abstract, sculptural techniques. For each work, Vora begins by painting scenes from personal memoriesor family snapshots, before covering the entire surface with a gel plaster and carving into it to reveal parts of the painting beneath.
The paintings are in his words “an attempt to resolve my own sense of meaning and truth, endlessly searching to remember and rediscover that which was once familiar… Painted experiences and materials of association become connections as they intersect, live and pass through interstitial, transitional moments towards adulthood and endings--lost, found, dissected, excavated and/or reconstructed into sensations driven by comfort.”
Born in New Jersey into a musical Indian family, Vora began playing instruments around the house, learning by ear and watching his parents perform at concerts. His urge to compose music early in life paralleled his desire to create visual environments. “Producing drawings and paintings was a way to manifest and inhabit my visions to which music had played as an ongoing soundtrack,” he says. In addition to an undergraduate degree in Architecture from the University of Virginia in 2002, Vora obtained an MFA in Painting at the San Francisco Art Institute in 2005 and hasexhibited continually since that time.
Sanjay Vora's work is born of reflection, derived from a lived American life as well as a cultural heritage rooted in East Indian traditions and music. Born in New Jersey into a musical Indian family, both his music and art have been strongly influenced by his bicultural upbringing as well as the surrounding rural American landscapes of his childhood. In addition to an undergraduate degree in Architecture from the University of Virginia in 2002, Vora obtained an MFA in Painting at the San Francisco Art Institute in 2005.
Vora's practice at present is to create a distinct and mimetic vision (based largely upon photographs), which lies mostly beneath, but also at times amongst and over the layers of veiling. The painted veiling serves as a mediating function between the “then” and “now”, as the tender representational painting recedes and arises re-constructed into visions of a dream-like quality of the world. As he covers and obscures the initial painting, he enacts a process of retrieval. In particular pieces, this process repeats upon itself.
I was inspired at an early age to be creative. Born in New Jersey into a musical Indian family, I began playing instruments around the house, learning by ear and watching my parents perform at concerts. My urge to compose music early in life paralleled my desire to create visual environments. Producing drawings and paintings was a way to manifest and inhabit my visions to which music had played as an ongoing soundtrack. Both my music and art have been strongly influenced by my bicultural upbringing as well as the surrounding rural American landscapes of my childhood. In addition to an undergraduate degree in Architecture from the University of Virginia in 2002, I obtained an MFA in Painting at the San Francisco Art Institute in 2005.