My Creative Hero: Sankar Sarkar

Souchitra> My father, Sankar Sarkar, s my creative hero and my inspiration to venture out into the designing world. He is a multi-disciplinary artist who has a master’s degree in painting and has worked many years in advertising as an art director. He wrote and published multiple poetry collections, short stories, books and even a music album about folk songs. 

Though there are many other industry top creatives who have paved the way for my own journey with inspiration, I consider my father as my creative hero because he gave me the most important message in my early years which I actually understood much later in life. And the message was: “Every time you create something, don’t get too attached to it, improvement of ideas comes when you step out of your own mind and look”.

He directly inspired many art and poetry-loving people and continues to do so even today. He became my hero by nurturing my imagination and letting it grow without being a demanding father, he was more like a mentor. He fits right in the frame where a young person imagines a role model, dare I say as a hero of my very own.

 

 

LBB> How long has this person been important to you and what are your first memories of meeting them or coming across their work?

Souchitra> I have known my father’s work all my life, but there are some core memories that come into play every time I close my eyes.

 

I remember the first time I noticed my father’s work when I was only four years old. He was taking drawing classes with 30 children, of all ages, from my village. He was drawing a big fish and a hut on an enormous blackboard for everyone to follow and draw. I was also there, but just scribbling in my tiny copybook and in my opinion, that was the best hut and fish sketch I have seen in my entire life.

 

Another would be when I was standing outside in the warm winter sun holding a bucket of glue and pieces of brightly coloured ceramic and glass pieces, and my father was giving his finishing touches to a huge mural he had been working on for months for our public park. It was a story of a fisherman and his song for the river ‘Ichamati’ (the river of wishes).

Over the years, I took part in many art exhibitions he arranged or showcased with other famous artists from the region, and got introduced to them as his son had a really big impact on me. Every winter season, we’d go to classical music concerts to listen to him giving a speech about literature or reciting poetry. These things would create a movie-like world in my head, I could see, feel and hear those words and art and the world so vividly.

I would go through his paintings and try to replicate them on canvas or on paper. I would wake up on some foggy mornings and see him working on a new painting. The brush strokes he would create while sipping his favourite tea are the fondest memories I have of him creating art.

 

 

Souchitra> My father was always busy creating with watercolour, and oil paint, teaching art and writing poetry. We were always very close, not because he’s my father but because of the love we shared about art and music in general. He always encouraged me from my early days in art college to become an advertising veteran.

 

It was when I saw the hand-painted mock-ups of product packaging design and how he placed lettering from the ‘Letraset Book’. Watching him frame actual print ads, drawn and retouched on photographic film, my mind was blown. I knew I was going to learn graphic design and follow the same path my father had taken 30 years before.

He would tell me about his advertising agency life and how frustrating it was to work on the changes over and over when clients wanted the bigger logo every time without the help of computers or Photoshop that we know today. So he was preparing me for the hidden dangers of this world but oh the fun I am already neck deep in this!

As I followed the exact same dream and the path. I got his approval and blessing when I made a decision to become a graphic designer and so on. Every time I created something that may or may not be noteworthy, he would take so much pride and joy and show it to everyone.

He is proud of what I have become and expects more, I too am proud that I have such a tremendously talented father and a mentor.

 

 

Souchitra> Inspiration is a mysterious word. We can get it from sights, lights, sounds, touch, or just sitting with closed eyes in a dark, moist patch of grass inside a peaceful forest or a beach by the song of the blue ocean or at the top of a mountain where the sun goes to rest and the moon shines brighter than the day.

But when that word 'inspiration' comes to you with a recognizable face, a voice, and a hand to hold and teach how to make your first straight line on a drawing book… Do I need to say anything else? That’s my father, and his tremendous artistic genes and creative blood, which flow in my veins. Besides letting me learn the ropes of the artistic world under his careful supervision, he got me books of classic master artists and maestros from all over the world. He is an inspirational figure to many of his students and that goes for me too. Not only as his son but as a student.

LBB> How does this person influence you in your approach to your creative work?

Souchitra> Growing up in a village, deep in Eastern India’s coastal region, has its perks. You know how to climb a tree and swim in a river. Running breathless in fragrant mango groves as far as your eyes can see. All these, influence how and what you become later in life. Watching your house filled with canvases and colours everywhere and always smelling like linseed oil and paint, surely leaves a lasting impression. So, I learned from the best, and he taught me to see the world in its brightest and fullest version, which is reflected in my work today.

Till today whenever I get stuck on something and as we call it a ‘creative block’, I talk to my father or think about how he would handle it as if he were in the same position. He told me to think about art history, sculpture or listen to tribal music of the Tuareg people, some long-forgotten films or even about our grandma’s cooking. From wallowing in the depth of the problems now, I have multiple solutions to work on. That’s how he taught me how to approach any design or brief I handle today.

Any creative work which we start to think of as a problem is a wrong approach. There are no problems and solutions, it’s just a lack of experiential justification for the subject. Imagination works better when you want to ‘feel’ first, rather than trying to find a solution for it. So I learned from the best and that became my forte.

He influenced me in many ways, but the most important one is how he approached life and his art in such a calm manner with simple things. That simple approach has become the greatest influence in my life and in my creative work. Deciphering a creative brief and any other hurdles becomes much easier when you have a calm and collected mind. The complexity of modern digital creative works still can have a simpler starting point which can turn it into a successful campaign.

 

 

LBB> What piece or pieces of this person’s work do you keep coming back to and why?

Souchitra> His watercolours of nature and his poetry keep me going. He still creates at least one sketch or painting every day. His dedication and love for his passion is outstanding. I still follow his work like a devout. There are stories of people he captures in his art and poetry that fascinate me the most.

One of his early paintings of ‘Buddha with a blue lotus’ is still my favourite. I am an artist, photographer, and designer - all of it may be because of that painting. There are many other pieces I admire but his work collection of print ads of the '70s and '80s are my absolute favourite too. So sometimes when I feel less creative, I think of that painting and its bright colours, and those old mounted print ads he had done years ago. They are like glimmering treasure chests in my mind.

The tremendous amount of creative and peaceful energy he shares with me is the only shining light that helps me navigate this bleak, over-informative digital and social world of today.