Designs on nature

For 23-year-old artist Puneet Gupta, one of the biggest inspirations for his work is nature. That’s what led him to work on a series for climate change. Little did he know that one of his artworks would get him an invite to participate in the one of the most prestigious art events in Los Angeles — ‘Dwell on Design’.

An annual event curated by Milan-based Design Boom magazine, the exhibition features the latest design ideas across a range of products. This year, the theme for the exhibition is Asia Now, and it brings the best contemporary designs from 11 countries in Asia.

“The exhibition basically explores how the Asian designs have changed over the years,” explains Gupta. Gupta’s art installation is something that can be termed as livable art. 0.76°c (the name given to the installation) is a chair on climate change that explores the positive and negatives of life.

“I always want to create functional art pieces and not just something that people have a look at and move ahead. It’s actually binding art with lifestyle,” says the artist, whose other creation includes note pads and posters on climate change.

Explaining his work, he says, “The front part of the chair is all bright and vibrant, it looks luxurious and comfortable. At the back, I have steel vessels (inspired from rural India) with taps. The one at the top is the largest vessel with one tap and as you go down, the size of the vessels starts decreasing and the number of taps increase. It shows how our resources are getting extinct.”