We chatted with Vineta Chugh, a 3D artist who works in a variety of materials including wood, metal, and plastic. Her Happy Body Collection is currently on display in the 117 Gallery as part of our 95th Annual All Media Exhibition. She recently graduated with a MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art. She grew up in Dubai, has lived in Singapore and even worked in Italy before living in Michigan. Her artworks are intertwined with personal experiences and combined with craft that open unique spaces of imagination for the viewer. She has created objects, texts, and images in which the insecurities associated with the mental image of the body are questioned. By choosing primarily formal solutions, she tries to approach a complex subject in a celebratory way and enjoys involving and engaging her viewers. Her works are an investigation of the urgency she finds in celebrating the body in art and design. With the societal binaries, such as beautiful – ugly, fat – thin, and masculine – feminine in mind, she tries to make work that questions them with a poetic approach. Her artworks are a direct response to a body-conscious environment.
What was the inspiration behind your pieces in this exhibition?
Vineta Chugh: My pieces are the Happy Body Collection. So it’s a chair and three benches that have three organic parts, like a body or like a figure. Most of my work or my studio practice kind of draws from the body and struggles one has with their body, and I think within my practice I try to create forms that, A: Help me with my own issues with my body and B: They comfort me within a really perfect environment that I live in. All the tables and chairs and all the objects that I interact with, they’re just perfect so I like imperfection, like everybody’s body, so I prefer to make stuff that comforts me through my everyday…it helps me with my struggle so I feel like celebrating the body within my work.
Happy Body Collection by Vineta Chugh
What was your creative process behind the pieces and what did creating them entail?
Vineta Chugh: For this piece I was kind of thinking about my past experiences, and I was trying to create objects that would live in the same environment as I would. So, body image is a very complex issue I think, it’s like how do you perceive yourself? And the more you surround yourself with things that resemble you or make you feel comfortable, I think it helps you. I was trying to think of my process and moving forward from the stuff I was doing before. I think what really was my inspiration within this process was that I needed a change within the interior environment that I surround myself with, I need to celebrate imperfection.
The process is a very tedious job to do. Each object has a resin coating and the resin kind of cures in eight minutes, so it was applied in tiny sections. It was laborious process of applying the resin on the piece.
How long did it take you to create these pieces?
Vineta Chugh: I wanna say like, a little over two months from the start to finish. But, yeah it was so rewarding after doing it and after going through it and treating the resin, you know, the end product made me happy and I think it opened up a newer direction within my practice for me, I guess.
Detail of a bench in the Happy Body Collection
How did creating these pieces open a newer direction within your practice?
Vineta Chugh: My work was rather small before this… and with all these pieces there’s a huge six inch, six feet mirror that I made that goes with the piece, which is not in the show because I think there was a limitation on the amount of pieces that I could apply with. So I think that was like my go moment, like break down all those barriers that I have and just go crazy. My process I think changed from a smaller, or an easy scale to a scale that I was challenged with, I struggled with it a little bit. And then it was a nice way to overcome two things at the same time.
Why do you think people should come see this show?
Vineta Chugh: Oh, because you guys [at the Ann Arbor Art Center] are doing great, the show is curated so beautifully. I think each artist has made work, very interesting work, and I think it’s a show you shouldn’t miss. You should support the art, come out and check out the artists…I think that the more people that gets involved in the art the more you’re just helping the community, like do better and go ahead. I think it’s a tight community and we’re always hoping for new people coming in and checking us out and seeing our work.
Check out more of Vineta’s work on her website.
Come see the 95th Annual All Media Exhibition from now until January 13, 2018.
See the artwork for sale here.
