Luxury Life & Style - Westside - (Page 40)

around, take picture of details. Not just of the ocean, but of little things – ripples, pieces of wood, rocks. I love photographing details and textures. It’s all about just looking at things piece by piece and putting them together. You put a photograph of some tiny detail against another image, and it just changes everything. Suddenly something that was that small becomes this big. And something that was that big becomes this small. I like that. EH: Why did you become an artist? RN: I didn’t have a choice, really – it’s not something I can switch off. I’d make a lousy accountant. But my initial enthusiasm for art came from my aunt. When I was little, I lived with my grandparents and my mom, and my aunts would come over almost every evening. It was India; it’s a different culture, very close. So one of my mom’s sisters was taking art lessons there, painting in the living room with people just walking around and chit-chatting and having tea. She did these oil paintings, large canvases, of amazing plants and flowers and scenes of nature. I was very, very young, maybe three or four. Her art teacher would sit me down and start me off with crayon sketches. Later I moved on to watercolors. I didn’t really pick up too much; it was more just the experience of sitting and creating something. And then of course after an hour I’d really lose it and run off and go play with my friends. EH: How did going to boarding school affect you as an artist? RN: I think a lot of my interest in art comes from that experience. There was no TV, nothing. We were completely disconnected. You had to have a good imagination to survive. All we had was art class and music and sports and our studies. That’s why I’m not very good with the phone – we didn’t have phones. Even communication with my mom just happened through letters. Then when I was about 12, my friends at boarding school started hiring me to paint plain white T-shirts with anything from Metallica and Iron Maiden covers to Garfield and Snoopy for their sisters. I started selling them for 75 rupees, which is about two bucks. Soon it turned into a mini-business and they went up to 150 rupees tHE art of raj naik Pralaya that’s where I really started painting and doing photography. My mom had moved to Switzerland, so after boarding school, that’s where I went too. I originally wanted to study architecture but somehow ended up in the business world. It wasn’t for me, so after three years I left. My dad was living in L.A. at the time, and I’d been once when I was 16 and really liked it, so I got a green card and came here at age 21. EH: How do you like living here? RN: I travel to India a couple of times a year, and every time I come back, I really appreciate the convenience and ease of life here in L.A. You land in Bombay and it’s an assault on the senses. Advertising and people everywhere. Loud traffic. The smell of samosas cooking in the street. It’s hard to focus there. Here you can tune out. You see the green light and you go at the crosswalk. In India, if you’re not looking, someone will pick your pocket. Just sitting in traffic in India is painful, since you never know when someone might hit you. At least here there are lanes, and you have a radio and air-conditioning. Even Switzerland can be difficult. I like to work at night, wake up at noon, then work till three or four in the morning. If I get hungry, Ralph’s is always open. In Switzerland, things close at 6 p.m. And the people you’re surrounded by are more artistic and creative here. EH: Ever had a day job? RN: My last full-time job was at Higher Octave, a record label owned by Virgin. It was in Malibu, up Point Dume. It was liberating, just beautiful. Being close to the water is so relaxing, it calms your nerves. We had these extended lunch breaks where I’d go down to the water at Zuma and just take photographs. It was good to walk 40 luxury life & Style Premiere Issue 2008

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