Play space

As in his work, sport packs a punch in Anant Joshi8217;s studio

One of the many remarkable things about Anant Joshi8217;s studio in Worli is that it has his wife8217;s name on the door. 8220;Yes, yes it8217;s her place. But like everything in Mumbai, it8217;s for rent. My dream studio is yet to come,8221; says the internationally acclaimed multi-media artist who has shows in Rotterdam and France lined up back to back. This Borivili boy has shifted spaces several times and is not opposed to the idea of doing it again. 8220;I could do it till I get my 3,000 square feet of studio space where I won8217;t have to think twice before doing a 14-foot canvas and where I can arrange my work table so that I never have to search for a single item,8221; he says with a wistful look in his eye.

This studio is not all bad. The living room is Joshi8217;s main working space, with all his brushes, pens and blades arranged meticulously on wooden shelves. Two 12-foot-long canvases take up the rest of the room.

In the corner, lie a bat and a ball. 8220;This is my stress-buster. When I come up against a block and need to think, I like to bowl a few with my studio assistant, or I just play with the cork ball,8221; says Joshi, as he fiddles with the keyboard of his slick 16-inch screen Apple Mac Leopard OS. One acclaimed work of this cricket fan is It8217;s going to turn sharply and bounce8212;a pitch report as name for a work that talks about violence and displacement.

The bat is a freebee from the many trips to stores to pick up action toys. 8220;All my work inevitably look at violence through the medium of toys. I also use newspapers to reference several images for my canvases,8221; says Joshi, whose current works have a series of dream houses pasted on canvas and coated with gold leaf dream-clouds. Another work has millions of Page 3 faces glued together against a golden sunset.

Look around and there8217;s no evidence of the stacks of papers or dismembered toys used in the process. Joshi, like any good magician, keeps his tricks secret. The one artefact that sticks out is a six-foot worktable with an overhead tube light. 8220;This habit comes from my J J School days. We had great reverence for the cut-paste guys in the advertising section who could do a cut-out by hand on a table better than what we can do in Photoshop. I love to have a big table to spread my stuff out and think.8221;