ABOUT
Partapur Studio is artist Lochan Upadhyay’s design venture named after Lochan’s hometown, Partapur. Partapur has been a driving force in Lochan’s creative practice, of which the studio is an extension, dwelling upon the site and its relationship with its inhabitants. It is here that Lochan worked extensively as a coordinating artist with the Sandarbh Artist Residency. And in that sense has been a venue for several creative experiments.
Partapur Studio products lie at the intersection of art, installation, and product design. Each line of products is an offshoot from one of Lochan’s previous sculptural works. Lochan’s artistic practice as a sculptor and installation artist has seen him work extensively with the way a city and its people interact. There are multiple references to social and urban concerns such as town planning, mobility, migration, shelter and so on. The sculptures take these concerns and present them subversively often employing locally sourced materials to demonstrate the aesthetics of the region. The objects created by Partapur Studio are collectible objects of art that doubly serve utilitarian purposes.
Partapur Studio works closely with the people of Partapur. In employing local artisans and craftspeople, the studio engages with the regional community creating job opportunities and expanding the reach of creative practices to a wider audience.
City Under Construction
The City Under Construction series of light sculptures take cues from and responds to urban scenarios - site, the human condition with regard to the urban location, planning and mapping the urban locale. These lamps are simple circular structures that simultaneously serve aesthetic and decorative purposes as objects of visual focus, and utilitarian functions as light fixtures. Works from this series, as is the case with most objects produced by Partapur Studio exist in the overlapping space of visual and decorative arts and functional design.
City Under Construction is an ongoing series of light sculptures and free standing units,of which are eighteen painted wooden light sculptures. They feature details that in some places resemble the outlines of a map, a cracked wall, or simple minimal geometric patterns. The works are finished in a way that resembles concrete surfaces. The greyness of the light sculptures is reminiscent of brutalist architecture – the 20th Century style of modernist architecture branded by the large, geometric, monolithic buildings, with exposed concrete often used as a surface finish.