I am a New Yorker living in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
I was born in New York City like my Mom, my uncles (Uncle Jimmy & John), my grandma (Grandma Honey) and my grandpa (Papa Jim). They grew up in Parkchester in the Bronx.
My Dad was born in Calcutta, India. His family moved to the United States in the 70s. He grew up in Rockland County in New York with my uncles (Uncle Kush & King), my grandma (Grandma) and my grandpa (Dadu).
I grew up in Essex County in New Jersey with my siblings and Mom and Dad. I moved back to the city during the COVID pandemic. You could argue that I am bridge-and-tunnel and not quite a New Yorker. That's fine.
There is nothing more important in this world than making art.
My goal has always been to increase the amount of happiness in the world. Art is the most direct way of achieving this.
Spirits are my meditation, a methodical endeavor intended to imbue a canvas with the experiences of both myself and my ancestors in the simplest terms possible. Spirits are the best way I know how to communicate.
They are an encryption. They can be decoded. I created the encryption process by hand. It was in response to recent developments in technology.
I aim to take the job of the machine.
I hope others follow suit.
Nowadays, people are simply a line item. A number to be minimized in a report. The only positive number a person represents in the tech world is the dollar value a company has extracted from them in the hunt for limitless growth.
There are only a select few people benefitting from this. And they are not happy. They are endlessly hungry. And they are making the rest of the world hungry.
Culture is quashed, community crumbled, in the name of the dollar.
Creativity becomes something to be automated and perfected.
Creativity and perfection are incongruous.
Creativity lies in our imperfections.
Some of my art has mistakes. It is imperfect.
But mistakes make us human.
And we can't forget that we're human.
Spirits are a celebration of our mistakes and what makes us human and a critique on the direction in which post-internet technology is taking us.
Nothing, really.
I am a tech worker by day. I've honestly done well enough over the years following the trends of the tech industry. My family has been wonderfully supportive.
I was previously a tech entrepreneur. You can look me up on LinkedIn if you really want to. I will not provide a link. Though it's not hard to find me.
(My identities lie separate, though they are both part of me, which is why I mention all of this.)
I joined the tech industry when I believed it had good intentions. I still believe many within it have good intentions. However, it is impossible to ignore that the game we all play has changed over the last two decades in favor of the elite.
Tech is no longer for you for me, it is for them.
But, there is always one thing that has historically belonged to us.
Art.
