Ajay Kothari talks about his abstract art
Dr. Ajay Kothari is a Rocket Scientist and President/CEO of Astrox Corporation which he founded in Washington DC area. His PhD and MS in Aerospace Engineering are from University of Maryland. He was born in India and has lived in US for 45+ years with 30+ years as US citizen. He has over 45 professional publications and also was awarded National Merit Scholarship in India. He has been invited to speak on aerospace subjects by many entities, interviewed on television shows and his articles on space related topics have been published by various newspapers (). He is also the first Indian-American member of the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) for Washington-Baltimore region, having acted in a few TV shows as a hobby in US like “Law and Order”, “The Wire”, and others for NBC, HBO and other Hollywood and independent film productions. He is also an artist having studied art as a major in high school. His work comprises of abstracts and impressionists in both oil and acrylic.
DANCING IN THE MIND WHILE COOPED UP AT HOME
Do you consider your paintings are mostly about emotions?
Many of my paintings are about emotions though not all. My other hobby has been acting. So I thought what if I can bring out the emotions on canvas? Would that be novel? Would that be interesting? The downside is that the pain also gets presented to the world, as does confusion, uncertainty, angst, anger and more. Pleasure is just not that interesting to paint, though I have tried that in a few places! Most touching poets were also pained in their lives when they created their most renowned poetry!
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| BLUNTED INDIAN – IGNORED IN AMERICA |
What do you generally like to paint about?
As I did attempt to delineate above, I like to paint the abstractness of nature, impressionism of nature, and emotional impressionism. I have no interest in paintings pets! I do though like to paint the majesty, uncanniness, honesty and still innocence of some animals.
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| Landscape |
When do you get the most inspirations to begin painting?
Most inspiration can come when one is frustrated with some other outside force, but that is a losing proposition as one hopes that does not happen, at least not often. I suppose some of the paintings are “created” by acting to bring those emotion in my inner self! But even that can be painful if done often! In that case I try to balance that with nature painted in abstraction or impressionism with abstraction.
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| East Meets West at Amber Fort Jaipur |
Why did you choose to make art in these themes?
I love art. I love acting which also has been a hobby. And of course I love my profession of rocket science. Actually fusing that science with art has also been very novel and interesting. Although I am a rocket scientist, interested in Astrophysics and Universe, I would hate to paint that. I have no interest in that. I would much rather paint that which comes from human emotions or emotions of any life form. That connection, that exploration, is much more interesting to me.
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| Regatta |
How long is your process from start to finish? Which part of your process do you value the most?
The most successful painting took me only one hour (or less) to make because it came from heart with much exercise of mind. Some others have taken a week, done slowly in parts. I have found that doing the background first and sleeping over it has resulted in more interesting result.
More info:
Website: https://ajaykothari.com
