EMERGING ARTIST AWARD 2015 | SHAILESH BR

The Foundation for Indian Contemporary Art is delighted to announce that the FICA Emerging Artist Award 2015 is being granted to Shailesh BR, an artist who lives and works in Vadodara.

The recipient of the award was chosen by a jury that included Belinder Dhanoa, Associate Professor, School of Culture and Creative Expressions, Ambedkar University Delhi; Susanta Mandal, Visual Artist; Riyas Komu, Artist and Director of Programmes, Kochi Muziris Biennale; Chandrika Grover, Director, Pro Helvetia - Swiss Arts Council, New Delhi; and Vidya Shivadas, Director, FICA .

As the recipient of the FICA Emerging Artist Award 2015 Shailesh will travel to Atelier Mondial, Basel, Switzerland in summer 2016 for his international residency. To know more about the residency space see http://www.ateliermondial.com/en/home.html . He will also get the opportunity to show his works in a solo exhibition at Vadehra Art Gallery in August 2017.

This year we received a good number of applications from students and young artists across India. The jury was particularly impressed with the way Shailesh could work out his philosophical concepts in what he calls "machines" by constantly re-imagining the purpose and function of every-day objects around him. Shailesh’s work stood out for its ability to imagine the structures of philosophies and objects as games and processes. He pushes his ideas by simplifying these structures in terms of their physicality and purpose, and creating them as machines.  Most his works display an element of 'playfulness' and 'interactivity' to deal with the philosophical thought through a mechanical means. His repetitive drawings reference the ritual-like action and motion of a machine where the ‘process’ take primacy over the object.

Shailesh BR has received his Bachelors in Fine Arts, specializing in painting from Chamarajendran Academy of Visual Arts, Mysore and has a Post Graduate Diploma from Faculty of Fine Arts, MSU, Baroda. He has participated in various group shows, CIMA Art Award Show, Kolkata (2014); Drawing 2014: Seven Decades of Indian Drawing by Gallery Espace, Delhi (2014); and Students Biennale Exhibition, Kochi Muziris Biennale, Kochi (2014). He has been part of the Khoj Peers 2015 as an artist-in-residence and was invited for the Khoj Peers Share in October 2013. In 2014, Shailesh has received the Inlaks Fine Arts Award and was also invited to Sandarbh Art Residency, Partapur, as an artist-in-residence. Shailesh BR lives and works in Vadodara.