Latika Katt : Interview by Vandana Shukla - Chandigarh Lalit Kala Akademi

Chandigarh Lalit Kala Akademi organised a sculpture camp from 20th to 30th March 2012 at Government Museum Art Gallery, Chandigarh, India.

Renowned sculptor Latika Katt led a workshop with 9 Chandigarh based sculptors.

This interview was recorded after her Slide Lecture on 29th march for the city art lovers.

About Latika Katt

Latika Katt has had solo and joint exhibitions in India and abroad and is recognized as one of India's leading artists. Honoured and awarded by the Lalit Kala Akademi Katt has travelled across the world on account of her art camps, talks and other symposia. Not only has she been a part of the administration of premier art and culture institutes, she has also had a long teaching career. Her work features in collections in the National Gallery of Modern Art, Mumbai and the Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi, among others.
In the early works of Latika Katt, the dematerialized materialization is very prominent. It also raises questions on the visual and the illusionist, the real and the imaginary. Latika's works mainly represent her ideology of space and her space, it questions and contradicts the norms of the world and revolves around the true being. The sculpture strategy in the 'Decay and Growth' series of her works deals mainly with the decay of mass correlating the paradoxical position. Abstraction from matter leads into matter. Latika's mode of reaching out to touching and modeling involves the pushing, digging, stretching scribbling and anything through which she can leave a mark of her identity. The intention of the artist is to create a multi-dimensional, imaginative world that goes far beyond the obvious.

The Rodin like ruggedness and energy in her colossal Nehru for Jawahar Bhavan, New Delhi and the work in progress Indira Gandhi is a testimony to her command over the medium and her technical prowess.
Banaras, the city of her adoption, is reflected in her work in forms and themes hardly ever attempted by any sculptor. In Latika's universe nothing is too insignificant for her keen eyes and dexterous hands.
True artists are committed to passion for their calling and will not be distracted by compromises deemed inevitable for a cozy and smooth living.