If you are travelling on Indian roads, you will find yourself frequently stuck behind a truck and words like, Ok, Stop, Blow Horn, Neel Kamal, Phool Patti on the back of the truck cannot escape your attention, embossed as they are on thousands of trucks and other public vehicles that trundle with imperious arrogance, at times with utter recklessness. 

This visual vocabulary of cryptic motifs, a necessary embellishment on the rear of public vehicles communicating directions and slogans that can also transform into imageries and captivating art forms, if you have the sensibility and flourish of a certain Alex Davis, a brilliant product artist based in Delhi.

His latest body of work, aptly titled Dented Painted, is a series of sculptures based on the graphics and graffiti that adorn vehicles. Having worked in stainless steel for many years, his recent work depict vehicle lingo into a scintillating art style, combining grassroots culture and street graffiti in a dramatic indigenous flavour. There are five limited edition pieces in the current collection, each priced at R5 lakh.

“It took me a complete degree in Mechanical Engineering (from University of Mysore) to realise that I was more comfortable with design and art, rather than engineering. So I took up a design course at NID, Ahmedabad and then the Domus Academy in Milan, Italy,” Alex told Yuva.

Explaining what inspired him to turn automobile graffiti into art, he says, “For me, a sense of familiarity is extremely essential for all my body of work. Instead of inventing a new form or imagery, I prefer to work with a familiar and known idea through its reinterpretation or a new style of presentation. Anybody who has travelled on Indian roads will not escape these phrases and motifs. I have intervened with grandness of scale and high quality implementation to articulate these sculptures.”

 The ingenious artist, evoking the flourish of a street painter, has developed these highly decorative fonts into a new idiom, creating a unique vocabulary that is typical of the streets and highways. Particularly impressive are images of the lotus with curling tendrils, which are constructed in steel in large dramatic sizes.

Curated by The Aaparao Gallery, the Dented Painted series, currently on display at Delhi’s Aman Hotel, is a distinct departure from earlier sculptures by Alex in form and finish. While he has mostly taken inspiration from nature to create artwork from stainless steel earlier, for Dented Painted, he uses sheet metal, with bright automotive paint finishes. The exhibition continues until February 2012.

 “My earlier works, namely My Lazy Garden and Hyper Blooms, were inspired by nature, flora and fauna whereas Moonlit Safari was depiction of the wildlife. Dented Painted is more like the highway art, inspired by the Indian roads,” he says. 

Alex emphatically states that he is not a trendsetter or an avant-garde artist with regard to automobile art. “I don’t practice automobile art. I practice art. The classification of various categories in art can be very limiting. I have only tried to turn street art into pop art of today’s India. My works are enormous in scale and brash in attitude, but they also balance delicate aesthetic sensibility,” says Alex, who is a Fellowship holder of the Royal Society of Arts (UK).

About the viewers’ response to Dented Painted, he says that people like them. “The colours, the grandness of scale and the high gloss automotive paint are indeed eye-catching. The rustic feel of the installations, along with the sleek fonts in bright colours, showcase the popular culture of India. We are used to seeing these forms on a daily basis, they represent the pop art of today’s India for me,” Alex says, adding, “Hopefully, I will be showing in Mumbai, Chennai and other parts of the country and perhaps in Paris too.”

Alex, who runs the lifestyle store, Indi Store in Delhi, says he is inspired by artists like Donald Judd, Thota Vaikuntam, Rachel Whiteread, Valerio Adami, Anish Kapoor and Richard Serra. He has held various solo shows of his works in New Delhi, Chennai, Paris, Milan and Verona.

In 2007, Alex Davis was selected as one of the top 10 designers in India by the India Today and Man’s World. The same year, he was chosen for Elle Décor India awards. He won the second prize in the professional category of the International “Glassware Design Competition Shades of Crystal”, organised by Arnolfo Di Camdio (Society of Italian Crystalware Manufacturers) and In/Arch (Italian National Institute of Architects) in 1996. He is on the Visiting Faculty of the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad; National Institute of Fashion Technology, New Delhi and School of Planning and Architecture, New Delhi. 

Earlier Exhibitions:

• Hyper Blooms, curated by Apparao Galleries, was his debut show featuring limited edition works. It was a series of sculptures in stainless steel of flora and fauna. Life size trees and larger than life flowers adorned his platform of creation. It was shown at the Maison & Objet in Paris and received rave reviews both from the press and the visitors.
• My Lazy Garden is a series of sculptures in stainless steel of flora and fauna.
• Strawberry Fields, which was exhibited at Salone Del Mobile, Milano in 2009, showed large Champa Tree installations, paired with a few blossoms.
• My Lazy Forest, shown in Paris, was widely acclaimed. The products were made using high gloss stainless steel and are inspired from the archetypical leaves, trees and creepers found in Nature. This collection comprised bamboos, monstera leaves, lily leaves and lily ponds, ivy creepers, ficus trees, orchids and blossoms.
• I Went Fishing collection showed products using salt and pepper textured river pebbles from the Himalayas and stainless steel. The collection had almost 35 products, such as lights, candles, vases, soap dishes, towel racks, wine bottle holders and ashtrays.

Alex's automobile artwork from his Dented Painted Collection along with his works from Hyper Bloom