Interview: We Talk To Nikil Inaya About His Latest Exhibition

Nikil Inaya’s second exhibition in Hong Kong explores personal and culture identity. This innovative mix of large scale oil paintings and smaller works on paper are dedicated to his late grandmother. His layered works hint at a hidden secret that the viewer has to discover, as if you could peel away the top layer to expose a completely new, or long forgotten idea. This ties in with the transformative nature of not only his works but also his cultural identity. His playful use of colour and texture bring an extra element that makes his paintings come alive and creates a sense of movement and change. For Nikil, painting is not just about the final product, its about the performative nature of creating. We caught up with him to find out more about his exhibition.

Photograph: Courtesy of the Hong Kong Arts Collective.

Was this your first exhibition in Hong Kong?

It was my second showing in Hong Kong after an exhibition of paintings in 2018 exploring parallels in the schema of the Divine Comedy and ontological structures in Indian mysticism.

What is the format of artworks you chose to exhibit?

This was a return to the space at the Hong Kong Visual Arts Centre and much like my previous instalment this exhibition mainly featured oil paintings notably on a larger scale. A select few works on paper in ink and watercolor will also be on display.

Photograph: Courtesy of Nikil Inaya.

Can you elaborate on the collection of still lifes dedicated to your late grandmother?

Falling on the first anniversary of her passing, this exhibition included a retrospective suite of natures mortes carried out over the years on my sojourns to India. As it became a custom of painting a vanitas on each visit, these compositions held special significance to my grandmother Shantha Bala and are now mementos from my earlier painterly trajectory.

Photograph: Courtesy of the Hong Kong Arts Collective.

How does your sense of cultural identity inform your artwork?

Whereas the still lifes are less tethered in imago to their region of rendering, the figurative works that were part of this exhibition grapple unambiguously with the context of cultural identity. Yet each painting covers an ephemeral expanse and is at the same time of a setting immemorial. Tales of gods and monsters, of avatars and end times, inspire in me the same awe and dread they did in my childhood. As it were this sense of play in unveiling the rich tapestry of my forebears is more immediately something of an inherent calling in the ambit of contemporary painting. From the household portraits of Raja Ravi Varma and fabulous controversies of M. F. Husain to the sensuous trade paintings of Bhupen Khakar and pioneering vernacular of Mrinalini Mukherjee there proceeds an almost rite of passage in tackling the dilemma of divine representation within the framework of my native heritage.

Photograph: Courtesy of the Hong Kong Arts Collective.

How does your theatre background shape your practice as an artist?

In "A Challenge for the Actor" Uta Hagen speaks on the imaginative processes an actor is involved in through eschewing what one deems to know in favour of acting on what one might expect. Just as a play is different every night there is a sense of starting utterly from scratch at the onset of every new painting. Beyond this are further correlations in dealing with imminent questions of viewer complicity and even an essentially unchanging perceptual plane of four sides but what sustains my praxis as a painter is objective-driven action coupled with an intuitive approach to mark-making in an ongoing archival landscape.

Discuss the influence of Matthew Wong and the Hong Kong New Wave on your work.

I was just starting out as a painter though wasn’t yet aware of it, throwing anything at the boards and seeing what would stick, when I met Matt at an open mic. Our friendship grew from an affinity we shared for the cinema and the historiography of actors, the discrepancy between their characters and personae as well as the confluence of these same rigors. Paraphrasing Lawrence Weiner, the cinema at its best doesn’t make you remain the person sitting in the cinema but rather identify with the actor so that you’re in another world without an obligation put on you. Whether content follows form or structure serves plot, the grit involved in overhauling tradition draws me to the New Wave and the current work of its staples and starlets, from scintillating early noir veteran Andy Lau’s fresh turn in the searing high comedy "The Movie Emperor" to absurdist mo lei tau entrant Sandra Ng’s painstakingly endearing portrayal of the innocence of dearly grief in the acclaimed "Love Lies". Versatility is influence and a sustained subversion of styles of one’s own making, irrespective of medium.

What do you hope viewers took from this exhibition?

Only what they did. As a rule when I judge to see a film I avoid the adulteration of its trailers.