Dhanishta Ambwani was interviewed by Mark Kilfoil on CHSR's (97.9FM) program "The Lunchbox," on July 13th, 2018.
MK: Hello Dhanishta, how are you doing today? DA: I’m doing good. MK: So you’re currently in the Barracks’ casemates right now and enjoying hopefully a cooler day than what has been the case for a lot of days so far. Tell me a bit about the work that you’re working on. DA: So I’m in here at the Barracks and I am a painter. I do acrylic painting, so since the theme is the river, my painting is a view of the walking bridge from the Northside part, so Carleton Park. And I took some newspaper clippings about the flood that we just recently had, since it was such a huge part of our year, and I’m sort of making a mixed-media painting involving those newspaper clippings. MK: So how does that work? Where do the newspaper clippings go? How are they incorporated? DA: So my first idea was to use, instead of painting the river, I would use the newspaper clippings, but my plan’s changed as I started actually painting it. So right now they are sort of incorporated in different ways in the painting, so I have some of them in what is the sky, or some of them are in the river, some of them are in the trees, sort of spread out everywhere. MK: So what drew you to that kind of work? DA: I think I really wanted to do something unique that was a little outside my comfort zone, something I hadn’t done before. Usually I just work in acrylic, and I wanted to do something different since the theme was the river, and I wanted to explore a different way to showcase that. MK: So you’ve got an interesting concept or contrast between these newspaper articles, which would be very descriptive, all full of words, and then the water colour, which I presume doesn’t have words in it. DA: Yeah, definitely. MK: How long have you been working with watercolour? DA: Actually my painting, is in acrylic. MK: Oh sorry, acrylic, pardon me. DA: I’ve been working with acrylic for about five years I think. I’ve always painted my whole life, but just recently I’ve started focusing on acrylic painting. MK: What drew you to acrylic painting over whatever you were doing before? DA: Well, I’m pretty young, I’m only sixteen, so before it was just general like “I love art” and then these past few years I’ve gotten more specific. MK: Wow! Okay, I didn’t realize you were quite that young. So when you say five years of acrylics, that is a third of your life. DA: Yeah (laughs). MK: So what experience have you had so far with acrylics? What sort of paintings have you done? DA: I’ve done all types of different paintings. I have an art teacher and he sort of helped me figure out what I like and what I don’t like. I’ve tried many different styles to sort of explore what I’m in to and what I like doing. I still don’t have a distinct style yet, and I think that’s something you develop over time obviously as you mature. And I’m still exploring what my style is. Something that’s in a lot of my paintings is actually 3D pallet knife work, so I have a modelling piece, and then I use the pallet knife to make a 3D effect, usually when there’s trees or something like that. And it’s <indistinct> that I’m doing here in the barracks. So that’s something I like working with in my paintings. MK: So you were obviously attracted to this, you were still quite young when, I mean, I can’t remember what I was doing at eleven, certainly not as artistic as this. How did you get started? Was it just something you did for fun and then someone came and said “Hey, you’re pretty good at this, you should go further with it,” or did you just always kind of know? DA: Well, I’ve always been pretty artistic. Ever since I was little, I’ve been drawing or painting, or doing something, and then once I turned eleven or twelve, my mom actually found who would be my art teacher now, and he helped me fine-tune my skills, and now it’s something I really enjoy doing. MK: So do you take art class a lot more seriously than most of your friends? DA: My art class isn’t by the school, it’s mainly a private thing. I don’t take it too seriously actually, our class happens once a week, it’s like an extra-curricular, and it’s a time for me to relax, it’s a time for me to get out all the stress from school, but sometimes I am a bit more critical about what I’m doing than most people would be, but I think that’s just because I want to improve. MK: You’re quite young, and yet you are one of the artists in residence this week. What does that feel like? DA: It’s a really great experience, I think it’s so awesome that I get to have this experience when I’m still in high school. I get to talk to so many different people from so many different places and talk about my work. It’s a really great experience. MK: Have people come in with questions yet? DA: Yeah, a few people have come with questions. I’ve had some good conversations with other art enthusiasts that come and stop by, yeah. MK: Are people surprised at your age? DA: Yeah, a lot of people are. A lot of people think I’m actually going to NBCCD, which is right in front of us, and they’re surprised when I tell them I’m still in high school. MK: What grade are you in now? DA: I’m going to Grade 11. MK: So still a couple of years left before you make that big decision, but do you think art school is going to be the place for you, whether it be this one or another? DA: I don’t think I will pursue art as a career, just because I have other passions that I think I would want to fulfill more. Art will definitely be a part of my life for my whole life because I enjoy it so much. But I don’t think art school would be for me. MK: I would say definitely hold on to that part of you. I know that a lot of folks who start art young but maybe don’t see an initial career in it do come back to it later on in life. So what’s been the most inspiring thing you’ve seen in the Barracks so far as far as your art or other things that you think might be interesting to try? DA: The other artist in residence, who’s in the Barracks with me, Tracy, she’s a textile artist, and I think it’s so cool. Seeing her work is so interesting, I’ve always wanted to learn how to sew and make clothes, so it’s interesting to see her do her work, as a miniature textile artist, which is so cool. MK: What about other inspirations for art? You’ve looked at, I’m assuming, a lot of different artists. Have there been some that really stood out to you and either do the kind of art you want to do or the kind of art you want to be inspired by? DA: Definitely. I saw a few artists, this one (in particular) was also a painter, and she was doing an abstract type of art, and that was really inspiring. I think it was really interesting to see that. MK: Abstract art is difficult sometimes to interpret. Do you feel you have an eye for it or is it still a bit of an interesting challenge? DA: I’ve always loved abstract art. I think it’s definitely up to the viewer how they interpret it, and I think it depends on how you feel when you look at it, too. You can look at a piece and you’re feeling one thing, and think of something totally different out of it, and you can come back to it in a day or two and see something totally different. MK: Do you think in your generation, in the contemporaries and friends you have of your age, do you think they still appreciate art? I know that the world seems to move at a very quick pace; we have a million things to distract us with every single day. Do people still take time at your age to dwell on the art? DA: I think there’s a different appreciation that people have at my age, and I think especially with technology around us, there is so many different things. It’s sort of a different generation of art; I think a lot of kids my age don’t go to galleries that often, but we see and appreciate art online. There’s different ways that we look at it that maybe older people won’t. MK: What sort of things do you think the youth are picking out? DA: There’s an artists, she’s a French artist, and she’s quite young as well, she’s in her twenties. I think her paintings are all based on how we perceive social media and its effect on us, and I think a lot of people my age really appreciate her art and can connect with it. I think that’s something special to people my age, and older generations might not be able to connect with it as much. MK: Sort of coming full circle then. So in the work that you’re working on, you’ve already kind of described it as a collage. Is a little bit of that thing in your mind as well, the sort of notion of a multimedia landscape? DA: Oh yeah, so that is what I was aiming for; to have something that people wouldn’t be expecting in a painting, having these newspaper clippings in different parts of the painting. MK: It seems like a pretty ancient technology, newspaper, that we’re seeing waining a bit. What is it like for you to use newspaper? Is that something you normally engage with? DA: Oh yeah, I love reading the newspaper, I’m kind of old-school like that. I actually am using French newspapers since I couldn’t get a lot of English newspapers, so they’re all French newspapers and its interesting to see the difference that the stories about the flood in the French newspapers and the English newspapers. There’s a different style of writing, and I think that it’s really interesting to see that. MK: When you’re working on this, is this just one piece you wanna work on or do you wanna work on a couple of them while you’re there? DA: I think this will be the one piece I’m working on. If I get done early I might start another one, but yeah. MK: How long does it typically taken you in the past to work on the piece? Is this something you think might take longer or less? DA: I think this one will take the full week. I’m here every day from 10-5pm, and I’m working on it at all times. And I think I’ll be able to finish it by the week, but it’s definitely taking a long time. MK: As people come in and they see the work progress over the week, what do you expect to get for questions? Do you think it’s going to be, as I did fairly early on, wondering about the age and how you came to be this way or is it about the subject matter? What do you think people are going to ask you? DA: I think it’s mostly about the organization, the Fredericton Arts Alliance, and also my age and what I’m doing here and how long I’ve been doing it, so yeah. MK: So have you been a member of the alliance for a while now? DA: I’m actually not a member myself. I saw the applications for the Artists in Residence and I applied for it, so I think that’s the case for most of the artists here. MK: So that’s a pretty great opportunity. Was this something you had been aware of before, or just a happenstance? DA: I had seen the Artists in Residence last year, they were in a shipping container downtown, I think in Officer’s Square. I didn’t really think it would be something that I would do or could do. But then I saw the applications literally just by chance online, and I thought I would apply and try my luck. MK: What changed your mind? DA: I think it was just getting older, even if it’s one year. I think I gained more confidence and thought that it was something I actually could do. MK: So you came to acrylic painting, have you also done other artwork in the meantime, or other forms? DA: Yeah, I also did watercolour for a good bit. I still do watercolour, but not as often. I mostly paint, sometimes I draw, but I like painting because it’s fun and I get to express my creativity that way. MK: And you said the view against the walking bridge you’re looking at and the view from the Northside, that’s not a view you’re getting outside the Barracks today so are you doing that from memory or do you have photograph references? DA: I have a photo that I’m referencing, yeah. MK: So are you aiming for a realistic depiction or do you want the surrealist or abstract version? DA: No, it’s not realistic, it’s more of, again, since it’s the newspapers, I guess I’m going for contrast in my painting because I have the bridge, and it’s not supposed to be the centrepiece of the painting. The centrepiece of the painting is the work that I’ve done in 3D and the newspapers and all of that coming together, and I think that bridge is there to have something other than the river. MK: Like a measuring stick almost. Did the flood directly affect you? DA:The flood didn’t directly affect me, I was fortunate enough. I live far enough on the Northside that it didn’t, but I had friends who really had to move for basically a month out of their houses. MK: You’re young, what is it like to hear that the floods records are going back to say, 1973? DA: It’s crazy. I briefly remember the 2008 flood, I was probably five or six. It was just so crazy seeing the levels of water and I just couldn’t imagine it. And then even hearing the news, it was really hard to imagine the levels of water. But I remember I had to go to the airport, I was flying out, and we couldn’t get to the airport because the levels of water had reached that level, so we had to go around. And it was just so crazy that something, the river that we see every day, can do. MK: Well, it’s an interesting challenge to come up with. Was this the first thing that came to mind when the theme was water? DA: No it wasn’t actually. I had to think for a while about what I wanted to do here. I had a few ideas but I wanted to do something that people could clearly see it was Fredericton, I was gonna do a bit of more abstract painting just inspired by the river, but I decided to do a view of Fredericton because I felt that people could connect with that. MK: Now the newspaper is pasted down, is that right? DA: Yes, so I’m using acrylic medium to sort of paste them down on the canvas. MK: Now with a brush stroke, you can paint around it, maybe transform it a bit, you’ve got to be pretty precise when you’re putting newspaper down I’m assuming. DA: Yeah, it was hard. I had to peel it off quite a bit and make sure I was putting them in the places I wanted them, but I made a few mistakes in where I was placing them, but I just covered it up with paint. MK: So there’s an opportunity to kind of refine it later. How long have you had a chance to work on it so far? I saw a little bit of it because I was down in the area with another interview, and I saw that article and kind of sketch, if you will, of the walking bridge. DA: I was working on this Monday morning, Tuesday morning, and then I’m here all day today and for the next few days, so I think in total I’ll be putting in about thirty hours. MK: Wow, that’s like a full-time job for a week. How is the weather affect either the pasting or the acrylic itself, is it difficult to work with than the open air and the hot air? DA: It’s surprisingly not that hard. I thought would have trouble with the paint drying really quickly when I was mixing it, and I actually got medium so it wouldn’t dry so fast, but I haven’t had any problem with it. We have fans going in here so it’s not a problem at all really. MK: Well, I’m hoping your painting in public experiment goes well this week and you’re bridge comes together. Normally I ask if there’s places where people can follow the work online but I have a feeling you don’t quite have that yet. DA: No, I don’t. I’m still working that out and seeing if that’s something I want to do. MK: At the very least, enjoy it, have a lot of fun with the art this week, and I want to thank you very much for talking with me. DA: Thank you. Listen to the full interview here.
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