The controversial abstract artist

Anish Kapoor, Indian-born, UK based abstract artist with a specialisation in exhibits and public installations, was born today in 1954. His works are known and displayed around the world.

Anish Kapoor; Source: Public Domain

Born in Bombay, all the way back on the 12th of March, 1954, Anish Kapoor has become somewhat of an infamous personality, due to his monopoly over Vantablack, the darkest shade of Black paint in the world currently. However, his association with art goes way back and is far richer than that.

While studying as a child, he found his schooling deeply distracting and unsatisfying, he would instead take to art, and especially abstract expressions of it, to find his calling in life. As he moved to the UK to work in an art gallery, his skills sharpened.

He became known in the 1980s for designing installations and sculptures using the barest of simple materials - granite, limestone, marble, pigment and plaster. Evoking the void in these forms, his sculptures would seem to blend away into the background, signifying being lost or far ahead, receding into the distance. Anish Kapoor maintained that his work was focused on the dualities of life, visible-invisible, light-dark, etc.

For he has remarked. "In the end, I’m talking about myself. And thinking about making nothing, which I see as a void. But then that’s something, even though it really is nothing."

Working with stainless steel, to act as a mirror-like reflection of the viewer, or distorting it, has been a part of his repertoire, as has his use of red, to signify flesh and blood. He has been credited with many installations, around the world, on a variety of subjects.

From Sky Mirror in Nottingham to Cloud Gate in Chicago, Dirty Corner in Milan, to Orbit in London’s Olympic Park, Amish Kapoor’s works never fail to incite controversy or critique, but also considerable praise. And for that, he has received awards from both his native country of India, his mother’s country and his place of stay for education, Israel, and the site of most of his works, the UK, where he was Knighted.