Nikheel Iyer is an art student from New Delhi, India. Born hearing impaired, communication with the hearing world has always been a bit of a challenge for him, but he has figured out his own unique ways to communicate with others. This happens specifically through his artwork, which Iyer has been passionate about since he was young. Now in America, he is pursuing additional educational opportunities related to his expressive work and he one day hopes to make art a career that allows him to provide for himself, in addition to making unique expressions.
After completing his high school education in New Delhi, Nikheel took up a course in Animation and Gaming Technology in Gurgaon, Haryana. After that, he joined the prestigious Parson’s School of Design in New York City. He completed his bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts in 2019. Currently, he is taking further advanced art certification courses in New York.
“It has been a long and arduous journey filled with challenges and hard work, especially as a disabled student,” Iyer says. “I have learned a lot and continue to learn new life lessons every day.”
Nikheel enjoys creating Neo-Expressionism, Abstract, and Conceptual Art. Each one of these art styles, is of interest to Iyer due to his life experiences. Specifically, his multiple identities of being a disabled, Indian millennial artist who relies on Technology, causes him to often times fuse together traditional and technological expressions in his work. Iyer is also heavily influenced by Japanese animation and comic art culture.
“In my solitary world, I explore the conflict of the individual versus the community, and the self versus the cosmos, in myriad ways,” he explains. “I see the world in various hues and shades depending on whether I am in silence or noise.”
The themes of Iyer’s work focus on human emotions, strengths, and vulnerabilities. He likes to explore the multiple personas of the human psyche that he views as threatening to come out. These ideas are all loosely related to Iyer’s own life, successes, and struggles.
“My achievements and my struggles make for a whole host of new questions, fears, doubts, anxieties, and opinions,” he says. “Some of my work looks at intelligence colliding with rage and frustration, and a lack of meaningful human interactions and fulfilling bonds. All that is based on my life.”
Art has done so much for Iyer’s life and he hopes that it remains a part of his being. Through his art, Iyer has been able to establish himself in the United States, obtain an education and continuously figure out who he is and what his art can do.
“Art is a tool that transcends all barriers of communication, language, culture, and vocabulary,” he says. “It is here to stay, now and forever, waiting to be explored and expanded to greater heights and depths of human emotions and experiences. Human angst and universal issues of the self and our cosmos, need artistic expression.”
Despite his struggles, Iyer sees his life as one that has been successful. He has overcome his disability to gain a prestigious education in a country that he is not from and has so much more that he plans on achieving.
“ Success, for me, is the ability to confront and deal inventively with the obstacles that come my way,” he expresses. “Success lies in finding ways out of a labyrinth of hazy issues in a strange world. Success is knowing I am different and rising up like a phoenix out of my own charred remains.”
Iyer’s rise is nowhere close to being done, as he still has to complete his education and his art career is just getting started. In the future, he hopes to connect with creative, imaginative, and innovative audiences and art aficionados who can help him grow in his craft, building off of the strong foundation that he has already laid for himself.
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