It is not luck but hard work for Artist & Designer Smrita Jain
Smrita, the artist has successfully carved a place for herself on the creative landscape of big apple. She is an NYC-based award winning designer at The Aqurio Group. She is internationally renowned artist at the Surmrit Gallery of Art and Design, which has its studios in Brooklyn and Manhattan.
When you meet Smrita Jain, you can’t miss a sense of brightness and innocent curiosity in her eyes. She recognized her inner calling at early age and then courageously followed her passion. She wants to be recognized as a creative person. She lets her creativity flow from in various ways, be it painting, designing or writing or thinking, she wants to create something different.
She wants to think uniquely and create with freedom to choose her medium of expression. She has experimented with colors as well as photography to offer something distinct and unique.
Smrita, the artist has successfully carved a place for herself on the creative landscape of big apple. She is an NYC-based award winning designer at The Aqurio Group. She is internationally renowned artist at the Surmrit Gallery of Art and Design, which has its studios in Brooklyn and Manhattan.
It was after high school in Delhi, her conservative, traditional family expected her to become a lawyer, but she decided against it and she had to fight to get into the creative field. She wanted to combine design and art, so right after her high school but she got into political science due to family pressure which didn’t feel right to her. She says, art spreads harmony but artists need to struggle for their expression and to protect their ability to be creative. She looks at it as a long process. Smrita doesn’t believe in blaming others, yet she realizes that her experience of failure and achievement both get expressed through her art.
She combines design, painting, writing, digital photography as well as graphics for her creative work. Smrita is also a frequent speaker to various conferences. She has an independent creative way of expressing herself, it is more about focusing on what she wants to say as well as when and where she wants to say it, whether is it a book or a painting.
She is respectful for her inner journey and at the same time, she pays special attention on curating her own art. This is visible in her exhibitions, she works with various artists, she is respectful of artist’s choice on how their art should be displayed.
Smrita has sustained memories of her childhood games and found a creative, innovative way of translating some of these memories into contemporary art form.
The child hood game ‘Tippy Tippy Tap Tap’ gave her the inspiration to create paper origami art installation. This game is played to figure out one’s luck. As art matures, creativity starts overlapping with the search and expression of meaning of life. This meticulous hand-built art installation by Smrita is aimed at unwinding of the truth. Truth that success in life comes from hard work, not just wishful thinking.
She has been through her own share of struggles and what she has achieved is built on hard work, not luck. Her message, success in life doesn’t depend on God’s wish or luck. She makes it clear through her talks and through her art installations that it is hard work that will take you to the destination of success. Smrita shares her view of life in these words, “Life is about each moment, every moment coming together in different colors, life is not about luck, it is about hard work.” She conveys the idea that life can be shaped differently through hard work. She was also the Keynote speaker at KADLondon 2017, her subject was ‘Global Status of Women and Girls’.
Smrita is a design mentor for students. She has exhibited at Pratt Institute, Javits Center, Queens Museum, The Juliana Curran Terian Design Center Pavilion, The Arthur M. Berger Art Gallery and The Nehru Center London.
It is not difficult to learn from her that she worked her way up gradually, she convinced her parents about her dream, she also worked hard for convincing her professors and colleagues. She appreciates competition for artists and acknowledges one needs to thrive in it.
She also presented the ‘Tippy Tippy Top Top’ installation in the two day creativity conference at Nehru center, London organized by art division of high commission of India. Smrita found Honorary Mention at London International Creative for this installation.
In Oct 2017, Smrita received 47th Creativity International Award Gold from India’s Ministry of Tourism, Govt of India for her work ‘Look Closer’. She worked on event advertising and posters for ‘Incredible India’, which is an international marketing campaign by Indian govt to promote tourism in India. The campaign was initiated to an audience of global appeal. Smrita picked the theme ‘Look Closer’. She wanted to portray Look Closer as mind-body-soul in the Indian context. These graphic campaigns revolved around inviting guests to visit India to learn the country from a deeper perspective and look at the details and intricacies that tell India’s unique story.
She also got 54th American Graphic Design Award for this campaign.
Creating Durga is Smrita’s first photography-based journal published by Surmrit Gallery of Art and Design. It depicts the history of one of the most important festivals in India, it is the life of artists behind making sculptures of mother Goddess that is brought alive through words and photographs, this book establishes her as cultural documentary photographer.
Smrita is excited about her second book, titled ‘Fat Free Samosa’, this art book has autobiographical elements. She presents her life as an Indian living and surviving in New York City for over a decade. This book is an honest, humorous, witty and dramatic narration. She is candid and brings a fresh perspective to difficult and confusing moments of life. Smrita Jain was selected as People To Watch 2018 by GDUSA, as an individual who embodies the combination of art and design.
(The author is President, Insight for Creativity. He can be reached at (insight4creativity@gmail.com)