Mihir Sud

Like most artists, Mihir Sud was exposed to the arts early in his life. "As a child, I loved watching my mother weave intricate lace, embroider, knit, and draw while she went about her daily chores. On lazy Sundays, I would curiously observe my father as he locked lenses onto his Canon AE1 and loaded film." During a time without the internet, he would spend hours browsing through books on art, architecture, crafts, and textiles that would be scattered around the house. At the age of seven, he received his first origami book and quickly became obsessed with it. Aside from a few models that were too complex for him to create, Mihir completed the entire book within a year. Gradually, he began using my dad’s cameras and explored various artistic avenues such as drawing, painting, knitting, embroidering, learning pottery and paper mache, and crafting anything he could from the books he had. He had figured out his passion fairly early on, but the real journey began at 22 while pursuing his Master's degree at Parsons. There, the concept of critical thinking propelled him directly into the heart of his creative pursuits.

Finding his Space
I worked for 23 years in Film & Design. Then, in 2018, I quietly started painting again. By then my closest friends were all flourishing as artists, performers & image makers in the contemporary art world and exhibiting their works across the globe. They were noticing the work I was doing and the encouragement I got from them was beyond incredible. They edged me till I tipped over and that’s when the free fall back into a ‘practice’ of painting started. Moving to Goa in 2019 fanned the fire to a point where I retired from all other disciplines and went all in, passionately painting every day to a point where I was refusing all other projects and focusing entirely on building my practice.  

My practice has gained massive momentum the past 5 years and I’ve been painting almost non-stop! My friends at HH Art Spaces, now the Official curators of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale 2025, have witnessed my career graph; Design in New York, Film in Prague, Architecture & Interiors in Delhi, Art direction, Production design, Album Art, Broadcast design, Branding & Communication, and a whole lot more in Mumbai. I gave up all of this and more to find a singular focus - that of developing my practice of painting in Goa. They saw my practice grow, studied my body of work & felt it was time for a Solo!

Acrylic Romance
I’m commitment phobic so if I am committing to a primary medium, it’s definitely temporary! But yes, I’m working with acrylic & ink on paper and canvas for now. I feel restless sometimes as there are so many mediums & surfaces to explore and I don’t want to wait, but I hold back, as my romance with acrylic isn’t over yet! The primary medium for my origami sculptures is paper, and for now, that too is quite a torrid affair.  

Imitating Reality
The works are all about feeling. I find a lot people searching for form or narrative in the marks I make, which as I explained earlier are impulsively born out of instinctive or sometimes chaotic moments, free of structure, influence or thought. As non-representational as the work may be, I’m fascinated by how, many feel free to make unique connections with the pieces as they create their own narratives, seeing forms that I may or may not have even imagined. That kind of reaction, where the viewer feels uninhibited to just feel & free flow as they build their own structures of imagination, is what I absolutely love!  For me when I paint, the only reality I may imitate are my own moments of nakedness and vulnerability, recklessness, resistance, power, love or any emotion, that in that moment, vessels through me. And sometimes to see someone catch that, in their own way, is exhilarating!

Colour Burst
Right now, I’m completely obsessed with quinacridone. I just can't get enough of it! From it, I’m mixing a whole range of purples and violets, and I can’t stop making more. I want to create new colors every day. My studio is bursting at the seams, and I’m running out of space to store them all.