Haribaabu Naatesan's Mumbai take on VW's 'Think Blue' ad
By Thornton Kay
Maharashtra (inc Bombay), India - Well it's yellow and decorated with scrap. This art work by Indian artist Haribaabu Naatesan was, he said, inspired by the 'Think Blue' ad campaign by Volkswagen. Hari is known for his applique futurist steampunk art using scrap materials, of which plenty can be found in Mumbai, with a corporate twist.
Naatesan's sees life in stillness and a beginning in every end. In 2009 he quit his full time job as head of graphics for a TV company and opened his own studio. He has now had a dozen exhibitions in India and one in Willesden, London.
Extravagant, exotic and colourful, his works look back to Indian decorative tradition as well as forwards to post-recycling society. He calls his art Mukti (no rebirth) and thinks of it as fossilised. To colour his work he has used leftover toner from laser printers. He takes apart the junk and sorts it into boxes categorised by shape, size and material.
"I am stopping recycling itself by putting these objects into my art," he said. "By doing so I save electric energy, heat energy, fossil fuels and other energies involved in recycling waste in big or small factories, which leads to global warming."
