Born: 1979 Pune, Mumbai, India
Year of Migration to the UK: 2003
Biography
Artist, academic and writer, Hormazd Narielwalla was born in Mumbai, India in 1979, immigrating to the UK in 2003 to study for a BA in fashion design at the University of Wales, Newport. Feeling that India in the 1980s and 1990s was 'still very closed', Narielwalla recalls visiting secondhand book stalls to buy British Vogue magazines from the 1960s and 1970s which became 'my visual references and fuelled my desire to work in fashion' (The Guardian 2016). In 2006 he completed a Masters in Fashion Communications at the University of Westminster, during which he had a chance meeting with a Savile Row tailor who described the shredding of bespoke paper tailoring patterns belonging to deceased clients. In the artist's own words, 'this left a profound impression on me' (The Guardian 2016). The 'idea of something so personal and detailed yet ghostly and impermanent' led Narielwalla to retrieve a set of patterns, which inspired his first book, Dead Man's Patterns (2008).
The artistic and cultural context of the book attracted the attention of renowned British designer, Sir Paul Smith, who offered Narielwalla his first solo show in 2009. Narielwalla was subsequently awarded a scholarship to undertake a PhD at the University of Arts, London, researching British army uniforms in the archives of the National Army Museums in London and at the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, which he completed in 2014. Since then Narielwalla has extended his practice to encompass collage, printmaking, artist books, and sculpture, extensively using found materials, such as antique tailoring patterns from Europe. His solo exhibition Dead Man's Patterns - Memento Mori, at London tailor's, Sheridan & Co, featured works created from discarded tailoring patterns belonging to deceased clients, discovered while working in Savile Row, home of London's bespoke gentleman's tailors. He has subsequently worked with patterns from many sources, including: 1970s luxury lingerie (Lady Gardens), antique magazine inserts (Le Petit Echo de la Mode), uniforms from the British Raj (Love Gardens for COLLECT 13, the annual London modern crafts and design fair), and a 1920s tailoring manual (Hungarian Peacocks, 2013). Together, these works create a unique 'archive', exploring ideas around the body and the way we choose to formally clothe it. Narielwalla's artworks propose a new interpretation of tailoring patterns as abstracted drawings of the human form. Freed from function, they are drawings ahead of their time, anthropomorphic in origin and beautifully abstract in isolation.
In 2013 Narielwalla was one of 11 artists selected to exhibit at COLLECT 13, held at the Saatchi Gallery, and in 2014 he received Saatchi Art's annual Showdown Art Prize. In 2016, the year in which he gained British citizenship, he worked on the series , Lost Gardens, exploring notions of culture and migration, commissioned and exhibited by London's Southbank Centre. In Autumn 2016, Narielwalla won the Paupers Press Prize at the International Print Biennial in Newcastle, England, resulting in a commission for the Royal Academy of Arts, London, shown in April 2017. In the same year, Narielwalla's work featured in No Turning Back: Seven Migration Moments that Shaped Britain , at the Migration Museum, London. He subsequently presented his multi-part piece, Bands of Pride to the Ben Uri Collection. In 2018 The Victoria & Albert Museum, London (V&A) commissioned four artworks inspired by the artist's personal hero – Frida Kahlo, for their major summer show. Other commissions include Centre of Possible Studies for the Serpentine Gallery; Hyatt Regency London for The Churchill and The Kensington Hotel. Narielwalla has also published extensively. He authored a biography of Master Tailor, Michael Skinner, The Savile Row Cutter (Benefactum, 2011) and in 2018 Sylph Editions and Concentric Editions co-published Paper Dolls, a series of abstract works and figurative self-portraits accompanied by a poem Narielwalla wrote for the book. He has also produced several artist's books, including Study on Anansi (2014), Lost Gardens (2016), and Hungarian Peacocks (2017). Ben Uri has featured his work in Migrations: Masterworks from the Ben Uri Collection, held at Gloucester Museum in 2018 and in Midnight's Family: 70 Years of Indian Artists in Britain (online 2020, during which he was interviewed for BBC London News). In 2022 eight collages and an artist’s book from his series Rock, Paper, Scissors, were acquired by the Hepworth Wakefield, while Narielwalla was the second featured solo artist to exhibit in the historic Mansard Gallery, newly-reopened, above Heal's furniture store in central London. In the same year, the film Birds of Passage, featured his 11th bookwork (of the same title) which compared the journeys of migratory birds with the movement of Gay people from country to country, from small towns to big cities, tracing Narielwalla's own trajectory from India to the UK, to freely celebrate his sexuality and creativity.
Hormazd Narielwalla lives and works in Whitechapel, East London. His work is held in UK public collections including the British Library, National Art Library, Ben Uri Collection INIVA, and V&A, London, among others.
Related books
- Hormazd Narielwalla, Birds of Passage (London: Hormazd Narielwalla 2022)
- Hormazd Narielwalla, Paper Dolls (Sylph Editions, 2018)
- Hormazd Narielwalla, Lost Gardens (London: Hormazd Narielwalla, 2017)
- Hormazd Narielwalla, Anansi Tales (London: Mazzotti Books/Hormazd Narielwalla, 2015)
- Hormazd Narielwalla, Hungarian Peacocks (London: Hormazd Narielwalla, 2014)
- Hormazd Narielwalla, The Savile Row Cutter (London: Benefactum Publishers, 2011)
- Hormazd Narielwalla, Dead Man’s Patterns (London: Hormazd Narielwalla, 2008)
Public collections
- British Library
- Central Saint Martins College of Art
- Courtauld Institute of Art
- Edinburgh College of Art
- INIVA
- Liverpool John Moores University
- London College of Fashion
- Manchester Metropolitan University
- National Art Library
- Somerset College, Arts & Technology
- University of Winchester
- Victoria & Albert Museum
Related organisations
- University of Wales (student)
- University of Westminster (student)
- London College of Fashion, University of the Arts London (student)
Related web links
- Fashion alumnus’ final project archived at the British Library
- Hormazd Narielwalla at the Migration Museum, London
- Hormazd Narielwalla: Becoming a UK citizen before Brexit feels bittersweet, The Guardian, 2016
- Hormazd Narielwalla - Catalogue of works, October 2019, ISSUU
- Hormazd Narielwalla explores identity through geometry and geishas, It's Nice That
- Hormazd Narielwalla: Sanctuary, ISSUU exhibition catalogue
- Interview with Hormazd Narielwalla, Aesthetica Magazine
Selected exhibitions
- Hormazd Narielwalla, Mansard Gallery, Heal's, London (2022)
- Midnight's Family: 70 Years of Indian Artists in Britain Ben Uri Gallery (2020)
- Migrations: Masterworks from the Ben Uri Collection, Gloucester Museum (2019)
- Highlights and New Acquisitions, Ben Uri Gallery (2018)
- Sanctuary, Gallery Elena Shchukina, Mayfair, London (2017)
- No Turning Back, The Migration Museum, The Workshop (2017)
- Body Architecture, Foundry Gallery with Saatchi Art, London (2016)
- Showcase, Fashion Museum, Bath (2015)
- Lost Gardens, Southbank Centre, London (2016)
- Saatchi Art, Timothy Everest Atelier, London (2015)
- Haute Collage, Art18/21, Norwich (2015)
- Love Nest, Margaret Street Gallery, London (2013)
- Imprint, Centre of Possible Studies, Serpentine Gallery, London (2012)
- Dead Man’s Patterns Memento Mori, Sheridan & Co, London (2012)
- Lady Gardens, Long White Cloud, London (2012)
- Fairy-God, Fashion-Mother, 4Fashionshake III, Athens (2011)
- Block Party, Crafts Council (2011)
- Hat-Parade, Bernstock Speirs, London (2010)
- A Study On Anansi, Paul Smith Gallery, London (2009)
Ben Uri collection
Hormazd Narielwalla in the Ben Uri collection
Ben Uri archive
Consult items in the Ben Uri archive related to [Hormazd Narielwalla]
Ben Uri library
Publications related to [Hormazd Narielwalla] in the Ben Uri Library