Hormazd Narielwalla (b.1979, Mumbai, India) was born in India and moved to the United Kingdom in 2003 to study as a fashion designer before getting his PhD in Fine Arts at the University of the Arts, London in 2014. Narielwalla’s practice is influenced by cross-cultural perceptions and he is fascinated by the transformative power of clothes as a means by which to project notions of character and identity. In his work, the idea of bodily adornment and costuming is a recurrent motif. Who are we? Where do we come from? Who might we become? These are the central questions that reverberate throughout his work.
Narielwalla began his professional life in the cutting rooms of Savile Row in London where the paper tailoring patterns became a rich source of inspiration. Narielwalla views utilitarian, graphic sewing patterns as “beautiful abstractions of the human body, that carry with them not only an outline of a garment, but also a representation of the individual that wore it.” He re-interprets the long-discarded patterns, overlaying their delicate geometries with forms of his own, to express ideas about identity, memory, migration and diaspora. His work transforms complex networks of lines and symbols originally intended to map onto sections of individual human bodies into the foundation for sumptuous suites of collage, paintings, and screenprints.
Narielwalla's work is held in the collections of the Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, UK, and the TATE Archive, London, UK.
‘Just like the humble yet beautiful stamp, which travels the world on a paper envelope, Narielwalla’s work bears a global imprint. His fascination with human adornment also encompasses the traditions of West Africa and India, pairing European dress patterns with Indian printmaking techniques and architectural conceits to suggest new multicultural identities.’ (Nancy Campbell, 2015).
