Born in Mumbai, in 1974, Jitish Kallat holds a BFA in painting from the Sir J.J.School of Art, Mumbai. He was a Fellow of the school from 1996-7. His first solo exhibition, P. T. O. was mounted in 1997, at the Gallery Chemould. And there has been no looking back since.
His solo exhibitions of paintings since 1997 include: First Information Report (BosePaciaModern, New York); Milk Route (India Habitat Center, Delhi ); Ibid (Gallery Chemould, Mumbai); Private Limited – I ( BosePaciaModern , New York ); P.T.O . (Gallery Chemould, Mumbai). The group exhibitions he has participated in include, Indians+Cowboys, Sydney(2003); The Tree From The Seed, Henie Onstad Kunstsenter, Oslo, (2003); Arco 2003 (Madrid); Under Construction, The Japan Foundation/Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery, (2002); Singapore Art Fair (2002); Mumbai/Mumbai (2001), Art and Culture in the Modern Metropolis (Tate Modern, London); Seventh Havana Biennale, (2000); Kunstrai , International Art Fair, Amsterdam, (2000, 1999, 1998); First Fukuoka Asian Art Triennale, (1999).
He says with reference to some of his own works, "My art is more like a researcher's project that employs a compilation of quotes (rather than an essay) from various sources to get the point across, so that each painting necessitates a bibliography".
Jitish often locates himself in his paintings, as the protagonist, giving his works a distinctively autobiographical slant. The scope of the autobiographical equations in his works extends beyond the immediate and personal, to include the artist’s relation to his ancestry, and to the processes of time and mortality. His narrative style is an economical balance of abstraction and figuration: images float around the protagonist, like icons on a computer screen. Jitish draws from a multitude of visual sources relevant to him – often these are images from mass media that are photocopied, manipulated and transferred on to the surface of the canvas. These are “real”, drawn directly from the contexts we inhabit, not “fictions” fabricated by the creative imagination. The images are like a picture puzzle, which the viewer has to decode and deduce from. The visual plane is treated like a battered wall; it is weathered and worked upon, as much a product of the artist’s efforts as it is a witness and testament to his actions.
The word carries a lot of weight for the artist. Many of his works carry legends. What began as a joke amidst classmates at the Sir J.J. School of Art, found a place on his early canvasses in the form of the copyright icon. The icon humorously brings into focus the supreme irony of ‘copyrighting’ an artwork which itself is a pastiche of elements drawn and ‘appropriated’ from so many histories, contexts, people, and collaborations. It is as much a statement, of acceptance/acknowledgement (of the in/formal process of authorship assignation), as well as his critique of modernism.
The artist lives and works in Bombay.