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    Published in March 2021
    Sunrise / Sunset

    The digital landscape represents a kind of spatial and conceptual horizon, and though cyberspaces are not free of conflict, they do create opportunities for growth, spirituality, and connection. For this inaugural issue, we asked designer and artist Somnath Bhatt to create an image that captures a feeling of discovery and exploration. With its digital textures and kaleidoscopic colors, the imagery in Sunrise / Sunset bridges the personal and the cosmic, opening a way to conceive of horizons both interior and exterior.

    BY SOMNATH BHATT

    I contemplate the future alongside sunrises and sunsets. A world briefly beautiful on the horizon, almost every day.

    As I write and draw this, I have shuffled all over this world to live and work. The shape and effects of time feel warped. Thoughts of belonging, isolation, and distance arise when I think about a future.

    Sometimes I look at the world and feel heartbreak—on an individual but also of the worldly scale.
    But just as two figures come apart, perhaps that leaves open another world to enter into.

    Figures departed into futures unknown. A new horizon rises—as others set as well.

    Artwork by Somnath Bhatt
    Somnath Bhatt. Sunrise / Sunset, 2021. Digital drawing. Commissioned by United States Artists. Artwork © 2021 Somnath Bhatt.

    [ID: A colorful digital artwork based on a loose grid of nine squares, which open and flow into one another, drawing the eye around the picture. Various small pixelated shapes cross the boundaries from one space to another. Human figures fly, dance, reach toward the sky, moving across the boundaries of the grid. Some of the figures are airy, composed of digital spray paint. Others appear more solid.]

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    Headshot photo of Somnath Bhatt.
    Photo by Rameshwar Bhatt.

    [ID: Somnath, an Indian boy dressed in all black, poses for the camera.]

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    Somnath Bhatt
    He // Him // His
    New Haven, CT

    Designer ෴ and Artist
    ⋰
    Walker Art Center (2020)
    Rhode Island School of Design (2017)
    Born and raised in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India

    His interests are broad; they range from technology, history to multilingual typography and traditional crafts. He likes exploring metaphors and tapping into the dynamism of liminal, peripheral, and intersectional spaces in art and design. Seeking the new in the old, and the old in the new is his favorite form of making. He has worked with Nicolás Jaar, Hyein Seo, and Reebok Classic on collaborations. His work has been shown at ICA, London; Institute of New Connotative Action, Seattle; Lewisham Art House, UK; Wrong Biennale, Oslo; Welcome To Junior High in West Hollywood, CA; RISD Museum in Providence, RI; Resort Gallery, Baltimore; ICA Philadelphia; Art Week Dubai; the Yale Odd & Ends Book Fair; MoMA PS1, New York Art Book Fair; and Brooklyn Art Book Fair.

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