Contemporary Indian visual artist Yashasvi Mathis is a self-taught artist whose unconventional art work flits between simple sketches, painting and digital media. Yashasvi Mathis is an illustrator and print designer with a Bachelor’s Degree in Knitwear Design from NIFT in Mumbai. She is currently exploring set design and working on her fashion illustration skills.

Across her work there is a deep tension in the slightly contorted figures she depicts : her colorful work navigates between reality and fiction.

Depending on the elasticity of our imagination, the layers in her work can take us far away. Yashasvi Mathis’ personal artworks are often led by a female protagonist and an audacious use of colors. They are usually about the universe of her mind.

 Yashasvi Mathis produces a lot of fashion illustrations and also collaborates with various indie musicians. Her work has been published in New York based Unemployed Magazine, Elle India and 100% Sketchbook, among others.

1. Do you consider yourself as a figure of Contemporary Art ?

Yashasvi Mathis : No, I don’t.

2. How would you describe your style ?

Yashasvi Mathis : Contemplative, obsessive, elaborate.

3. Tell us about your experience…

Yashasvi Mathis : I’ve been drawing for as long as I can remember. I always knew I loved making things but it was only sometime around when I was fifteen that I realized that I hadn’t quite put in as much time into it as I would’ve liked to. I later studied knitwear design and that was an important experience for me since I was exposed to a lot of things during that time that I wouldn’t have had the chance to learn otherwise. I love music, metaphysics, theology and ancient cultures. It’s been a wonderful experience so far and I’m really grateful to all that is, for everything that I have had the opportunity to explore and experience.

4. You have created your own artistic world, how did you manage ?

Yashasvi Mathis : I’m not very sure of if I have been aware of doing so, I’m still not. I think when you do something just because it truly excites you, the outcome stops mattering and you start to feel like a medium through which things happen. It’s a great feeling.

5. Does your indian identity impact your inspiration ?

Yashasvi Mathis : Yes, it does. I love this country because it is always so overwhelming here. I love feeling overwhelmed because it gives me a chance to understand how I truly feel about certain things and that makes me more aware of facets that I would’ve otherwise not been able to reflect upon.

6. What mission do you create ?

Yashasvi Mathis : I hope to make art that transcends being a moment of sensory delight or discomfort and enters realms of therapy in the sense that it becomes something like a source of solace by exposing how we, the entire domain of the living and maybe even the non living, function as a collective and that by expanding our inclusiveness, we become lighter and happier.

7. Do you pursue a kind of artistic quest ?

Yashasvi Mathis : Only that of finding out more of who I really am.

8. Which artists have a deep impact on you work ?

Yashasvi Mathis : A lot of musicians have impacted my work over the years. I love Fever Ray, Chazwick Bundick, King Krule, Little Dragon, Ariel Pink, Dan Bodan, Sean Nicholas Savage, Tei Shi, Pinknoise, Conan Mockasin, Mac Demarco, Peter Cat Recording Co. and a lot of Indian classical music. And Visual artists like Winston Chmielinski, Synchrodogs,  Anny Wang, Tristram Lansdowne, Michael Cina, Danny Fox, Pallavi Sen, Reinhard Weiss and Derek Ercolano have been pivotal to my experience as an artist so far. I really enjoy and look up to their work.

9. Does Mumbai nurture your work ?

Yashasvi Mathis : Always. Mumbai is a great city to be in not only because it is full of really sweet, loving people but also because it pushes you to keep up (work-wise) whenever you’re slacking.

10. What’s your relationship with colors ?

Yashasvi Mathis : I want to grow extra sensory powers just to be able to perceive more of them !

11. What kind of materials do you use ?

Yashasvi Mathis : I draw and paint on paper with water colours, gouache and inks. I also paint digitally and once in a while mix all of these media. I also make clothes and jewelry sometimes though most times they are more keepsake art than wearables.

12. Do you consider yourself as a spiritual person ?

Yashasvi Mathis : I am not yet as spiritual as I’d like myself to be.

13. What are your future plans ?

Yashasvi Mathis : I have so many ideas but they just ebb and surge in my head and I’m left with all or nothing. In the near future, I want to study art and print-making academically. In the longest run though, I just want to be a better person, more loving, more open, more receptive and grow my arms really big so I can hug all of existence all at once.

Portfolio: http://cargocollective.com/yashasvimathis