What's the connection between LSD and bicycles? 12 artists take viewers on a psychedelic two-wheeler trip
This Bicycle Day, 12 Indian artists take inspiration from the culture built around the controversial substance and celebrate it with their art. The works will be printed on perforated blotting paper, as a homage to the medium through which the substance is consumed. The exhibition started on 16 April and will continue till 30 April in Method, Bandra (Mumbai).
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On 19 April, 1943 a Swiss Chemist took a bicycle ride that would change his life, and over the decades, the lives of countless others. Hoffman synthesised LSD – Lysergic Acid Diethylamide in 1938 as a medical stimulant for the circulatory and respiratory system. | In the picture: Sid G’s ‘Gonna tell my kids this was Albery Hoffman.’ Sid G is the former Head of Design at Vice and has been painting for around a decade, now his work mostly revolves around films and animation.
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It wasn’t until five years later, on what is now called Bicycle Day, that he ingested a dose of LSD and took the (in)famous bike ride that revealed the psychedelic nature of the substance. Since then, the substance has been tested for its use in medicine and psychology but more prominently, and still illegally in most parts of the world, has been consumed as a psychedelic substance with hallucinogenic properties. | In the picture: Tyler’s ‘1st Trip.’ Tyler is an anonymous street artist from Mumbai. Since 2010 Tyler has created works using city walls as his canvas to bring to the fore various subjects that define society and culture around us. His works, often political, are brutally honest opinions expressed in charming and mischievous ways that relate and appeal to everyone who views them.
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The impact of LSD on pop culture does not need to be written about. From The Beatles to Timothy Leary to Steve Jobs and everyone in between have spoken about their experiences with LSD. | In the picture: Santanu Hazarika’s ‘Catfish and Greyhounds.’ Mumbai-based Hazarika creates intricately detailed illustrations and paintings inspired by Japanese Anime and loves to explore themes relating to mythology, philosophy and pop culture in his works. In addition, ‘live doodling’ and designing customised sneakers are some of his creative outlets.
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This Bicycle Day, 2021 Method takes inspiration from the culture built around a controversial substance and celebrates it with works by 12 Indian artists. The works will be printed on perforated blotting paper, as a homage to the medium through which the substance is consumed. | In the picture: Rohan Joglekar’s ‘Troop.’ Working primarily as a painter from his studio in Goa, Joglekar is deeply fascinated by nature and he draws his inspiration from its complex mechanics. A self-proclaimed pop-surrealist his art embodies a self-developed technique influenced by education in sustainable design, love for ecology and popular culture.
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The artworks will not be laced with LSD, the art itself though promises to be a psychedelic trip visually. The exhibition commenced on 16 April and would continue till 30 April at Method, Bandra (Mumbai). | In the picture: Tarini Sethi’s ‘The Company We Keep.’ Sethi is the founder and curator of the Irregulars Art Fair; India’s first anti-art fair. Through her art, Sethi explores themes of human intimacy and tries to break the taboo of body consciousness and sexuality. Her work constantly revolves around the idea of “utopias”. She draws inspiration from folk tales, the architecture of cities and stories of kings and queens alongside twists and turns of modern-day politics. Her work unveils identity while exploring sexuality within personal spaces, both architectural and cerebral.
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In the picture: Rema Chaudhary’s ‘Dancing.’ Mumbai-based photographer Chaudhary is inspired by nature and how we fit into the grand scheme of things. Her work is intimate, quiet, and filled with fantastical prospects of the internal and external environment.
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In the picture: Priyesh Trivedi’s ‘Untitled.’ Trivedi’s work largely revolves around nostalgia, popular culture and détournement driven by irony and satire. He is also the creator of ‘Adarsh Balak’, a series of illustrations and comics that parodies and critiques the educational posters prevalent in Indian schools from late 80’s and early 90’s. Since its inception in 2014, the series has gathered a dedicated cult following on social media.
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In the picture: Osheen Siva’s ‘Flux.’ Siva’s works revolve around themes of femininity, sexuality and gender and its intersection with technology and society. Through the lens of surrealism, speculative fiction and science fiction and rooted in mythologies and her Dalit and Tamilian heritage, Siva imagines new worlds of decolonized dreamscapes, futuristic oasis with mutants and monsters and narratives of feminine power generally lacking in popular art and culture.
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In the picture: Kunel Gaur’s ‘Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out.’ Gaur’s personal visual style is inspired by functional design and brutalist architecture and design movement that emerged in the 1950s and has come to evolve as a response to the overwhelming use of embellishment on visual communication both online and offline.
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In the picture: Kim Kaul’s ‘Madness vs Intelligence.’ Mumbai-based painter and poet, Kaul likes to play around with the idea of self: how, in this vast landscape of our emotion, can we understand why we feel the things we do, and how they manifest into our behaviour? As someone who has experienced mental illness, she has spent a vast majority of her time being intimately aware of her emotional responses. Through her work, she aims to dissect the emotions we encounter through our environments and experiences and make sense of them from an intimate, personal perspective.
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In the picture: thebigfatminimalist’s ‘The World’s Finest Operating System.’ Aniruddh Mehta is the founder of Studio Bigfat, a boutique multi-disciplinary design studio catering to branding, illustration, motion design and packaging services; with clientele such as Facebook, Gates Foundation, Puma, Netflix (Sacred Games), Subko Coffee and more. His work often transitions between commercial design projects to more niche personal work.
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In the picture: RuiningMagazine’s ‘Holy Trip.’ Conceived in 2016, RuiningMagazines (as the name suggests) started off with a few Instagram posts of old ripped up magazines. As the posts grew in number, it ventured into exploring the digital space that it finds itself in now (The humble beginnings of which were created on an iPhone app!). Some of the few interesting projects under its belt include the creation of 16 artist artworks for the very first edition of the music festival, Neon East Fest; collaborations with the home-grown brand The Ikat Story, with various indie musicians, as well as with Vh1 India, among others.
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