"I do not intentionally make my work sensational. Anyway, anything new is sensational first and later becomes a trend."

He is flamboyance personified, both in his own appearance and in the visions he paints, sculpts or ‘performs’. Nonconformist artist, Chintan Upadhyay, shares with Maria Louis, his avowed dream of spearheading an artistic revolution

I watched my father, an abstract painter struggle.... I come from a Brahmin farming community from Partapur, Rajasthan. My father, the first person in the family to have a formal education, became an artist and soon shifted to Jaipur, a city famous for its miniature paintings. There was no space for modern art and so, there was a lot of pressure on contemporary artists to get into traditional karkhanas. My father, an abstract painter, refused to succumb.

I did not want to be an artist.... Seeing his travails, I was not too keen on following in his footsteps. I guess genes have their way though, for while I was doing my B.Sc. in Physics and Maths, I suddenly lost interest in the subjects. I started helping artists at the Rajasthan School of Art where my father is a teacher and joined the institute for a year but soon realised that I would not be able to grow under his shadow.

I became interested in sexuality.... Later, I joined MS University, Baroda, an institution that is open to all ideas and forms of art. While doing my Master’s degree, I became interested in masculinity, popular art and the media. I was very sure that I needed to come to Mumbai, the city where you can dare to dream. Like all creative migrants, I came here in 1997 in search of success. The city hugely influences my work and right now, I cannot think of living anywhere else.

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