December 6, 2022
Ananya Gambhiraopet: the art of family
STORY BY meaghan burke / edited by olivia mckeon
Ananya Gambhiraopet ('24) is an artist who has a love of drawing and painting. She was born in Hyderabad, India but had to relocate several times throughout her childhood. Among the countries she’s lived in are England, New Zealand, and Italy before moving to the United States the summer before starting high school. She is studying Communication Management and Design with a minor in Graphic Design. On campus, she's involved in Buzzsaw and IC Unbound, both extracurriculars she is very proud to be a part of.
Meaghan Burke spoke with Ananya Gambhiraopet in October to talk about her love of art and her ability to tell a story without words. They discussed family, creation vs. destruction, and why art is an important form of communication.
MB: So, how did you get into art?
AG: I think my parents were very supportive of being creative when I was a kid, and my mom has always been very inclined towards art, always. So, that would be kind of a bonding experience when I was a kid. They just encouraged me to do it, and I really liked it; so, I just continued doing it for a lot of my childhood. And I actually didn't take a proper art class until I got to high school, which is really weird. But as soon as I got into it, it was great. I loved it. I've loved every drawing class I've taken. I had mandatory art class when I went to school in India. And so, when I moved here in high school, [my teachers] were like, "You can take Intro to Drawing," and I was like, "That sounds fun." So, I got into it that way. I've been drawing for a long time.
MB: I can tell how passionate you are. What's your favorite medium? And how did you get into it?
AG: This is a difficult question just because I think that my main goal in high school, especially in my later art classes, was to explore as many mediums as possible. I think I really fell in love with watercolor. For one of my AP portfolios, my theme was food from places that I've lived that were important to me, and I just felt like that subject really translated well with watercolor. And I really love ink illustrations, so I would say those are my favorites.
MB: Who inspires you to create?
AG: I think, again, my parents and my family and friends are very supportive. And my experiences always inspire me to create, which is I guess, not a "who" but the people around me are very supportive.
I think that when I listen to something or watch a movie there are always characters that I'm inspired by. But I would mostly say experiences that I've had. I've been getting into creative writing as well, so that also inspires it. Music inspires me a lot because I would love to do lyric illustrations through the pandemic. And I think it was really helpful for me to listen to a song and to kind of translate that to a visual. I love when songs don't have music videos because I feel like I can imagine my own scenario and draw that.
MB: I agree because there are so many songs that are just better without there being a video. Because it spells it out. What was the first thing you remember creating? And how has that impacted your future style?
AG: The first thing I remember recreating was maybe in kindergarten when we had to draw the Hungry Hungry Caterpillar. My teacher liked it, it was like a class competition, and I was like the top three caterpillars in my class. I was very proud of it. I think my parents still have it. And it just felt like a confidence boost for me to be like, “Oh, I'm good,” even though it's a bunch of circles. That caterpillar was really not high-quality stuff, but I was really young. I think that was the first thing that I remember drawing
MB: Is art a hobby to you or is this something you're going to incorporate into your future?
AG: I think that with a Graphic Design minor I hope to definitely include design and creativity into my future career. And definitely pursue it as a hobby. I still like drawing sketches occasionally for myself. I look at artists that I'm inspired by—current contemporary artists that I follow on Instagram. There's someone that I love whose name is Allah Singh, and she does a lot of fan art for TV shows and movies that she watches. She did a lot of fan art of Marvel characters, and Marvel actually hired her to do a fully illustrated book of women in power, which was amazing. And I'm really inspired by that. I think it'd be cool to incorporate that into my career, and I'm really passionate about it. So, that would just be a dream job.
MB: Do you prefer one over the other in terms of digital art or art by hand?
AG: I think digital is preferable for me when I'm doing anything for an organization like graphic design where I post things like that. And illustration is more personal. It's like a personal outlet for me, just an expression of myself, if that makes sense.
MB: What does art mean to you—your own style, but also, in comparing it to other art styles that you might have in some different art mediums?
AG: I feel like well, art as a whole, I think it's just a medium of expression to me. A lot of the work I do, for my classes in my major and stuff is, again, design-based. But I think they also stress working with your audience that you're designing for and making things accessible. So, I think that's important. Like right now I'm looking at maybe a future career in UX design, which is user experience design, so it's very heavily based on user research. So, how that relates to an audience and how they can use it is important to me. I think that, as a whole, it's a way to express yourself to other people or express any idea if you're doing it professionally. Medium wise, I think a good pen and ink sketch can express so much.
AG: One of the pieces I sent you was a portrait of my grandfather, which was done on a scratchboard, which is like reverse painting. So, it's the black paper, and then you use an exacto knife to scratch out the white. It's a negative painting, which I think is opposite to pen and ink. It was very therapeutic for me because it was very detailed. And while I was doing it, it felt very meditative. It also felt like an ode to my grandfather, who I'm very close with. And he was delighted when I showed him the portrait. It was a way for me to bond with him, and it's one of my favorite pieces that I've ever done—taking his photo for reference to telling him I'm going to work on this, and then going through the process.
When it got into different stages, he was very proud of me, and I was very happy to share that bond with him with other people. So again, I think the mediums that I use that are hand to paper are almost more expressive for me than anything else. The more digital things make me more focused in a way like, "Okay, I need to get this idea out to people,” because it's more professional. Like, if I was making a poster for an event, I'm like, "How can this be accessible to people? And is this design the best it can be?”
MB: Is there any other work you would like to talk about?
AG: The piece I sent you with the butterfly is called "Chrysalis." That's my favorite one. I did it about three and a half years ago; it was my junior year [of high school]. Half of that is all pen and ink with a Micron pen and watercolor. "Chrysalis" was a contrast between nature and being man-made. The butterfly side represents nature; it's very symmetrical, very detailed, and that's how nature is. And then the ink work on that is also very detailed. On the other side is the popcorn, which I thought was funny. Also, popcorn is something that you make if you watch a movie, it's a man-made thing. With butterflies, they're exactly symmetrical, and I thought that was a good juxtaposition because popcorn is very haphazard and not detailed at all. It’s very loose. They also both go through life stages, like the kernel becomes popcorn, and the chrysalis becomes a butterfly. So, that's why it's titled "Chrysalis."
MB: I really like that.
AG: I'm glad. My other piece is called "Sunset Self," and that I did pretty recently. It's probably my most recent piece that's digital. It was based on a photo of a sunset I took in Ithaca, and I did the background. I didn't like it, but I wanted to keep it, so I took a portrait of myself and made this jagged mirror effect. Then I did an outline of my self-portrait, and I just thought it looked cool. I think it was interesting to me because I spent a long time working on the background, which was a sunset, and I thought it didn't look as good. And it was kind of more fun to destroy it by putting the white jagged pieces on top of it. It's always fun to experiment with digital stuff because even if you don't like it you can get rid of a layer, which is a great thing—so fun. After you've done years of painting on paper just click one button, and you can just start over.
MB: I think there’s also something to note about this idea that when an artist creates something, they always love it, and there's so many times where you don't like it.
AG: I've seen my friends in classes who draw and make beautiful, beautiful things. And they're like, “This is bad,” and I'm like, “You're joking.” But I know that when I make something I am probably far more critical of it than other people.
MB: There's almost something nice about taking a piece that you might not necessarily like and doing what you can to come to the conclusion, “I'm satisfied with this. This is good enough for me.” Do you have any advice for either upcoming artists or those who just enjoy doing art for themselves?
AG: I would say make time to do art for yourself because I definitely fell out of it. As of a couple of years ago, during the pandemic, it was bad, and I had to force myself to get into it. Honestly, when I saw the Stillwater submission opening that was when I was like, “Okay, you need to get back in this,” and I made a couple of pieces, and I was confident enough to submit the one that I did. That really helped me get back into it.
So, even if you need a little push, like a competition, something you want to submit to, or even if it's an illustration you want to make for someone's birthday, get back into it. Because it really makes me happy, and I kind of forgot that. The more you don't draw, the more you lose practice, and I'm learning that now. Because sometimes I'm like, “Oh, I want to draw this," and when I try, I'm like, "I could have done this easily a couple of years ago." But now I've lost practice because I don't have time. So, making time for yourself is important.
MB: Is there anything else you'd like to say to fellow artists?
AG: I have an artboard that I don't use anymore, but it's really fun to still scroll on it and find other artists because supporting other artists is important. And seeing different styles always helps me, even to use those concepts in design work that I'm doing. I think art isn't limited. It's very flexible, and you can use different concepts, so I think at least being in touch with the art world is also a way that you can be in touch with that part of yourself.