British-Indian sculptor Anish Kapoor is one of the most influential conceptual artists of our time Known the world over for sculptures and installations that manipulate depth and dimension; his work demands attention, as well as viewer participation owing to its scale, vibrancy and the principality associated with matter and non-matter Born in Mumbai, India in 1954, Anish Kapoor went on to study art in the UK, completing his BFA at Hornsey College of Art and his MFA at Chelsea School of Art and Design In 1979 he began teaching at Wolverhampton Polytechnic He has continued to live and work in the United Kingdom since Post his first solo exhibition at Patrice Alexandra in Paris in 1980 and his showing at the 1990 Venice Biennale, he has gone on to exhibit in galleries and museums around the world including Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney, Château de Versailles, France and Guggenheim Museum Bilbao

The artist regularly references optics in his work, be it in smaller sculptures that feel more personal or creating gigantic versions of them that transform and engulf their surroundings His sculptures in stainless steel or resin challenge the norms associated with the concepts of perspective, space and perception These pieces attempt to create both a seamless and distorted view of what they reflect depending on how they have been treated and their finishes Anish Kapoor’s methodology is the perfect summation of his deep interest in exploration of concepts associated with architecture and the metaphysical

Among his many experiments with resin sculptures that are impactful is a series that lies midway between painting and sculpture Called Untitled Works, these works imitate flesh and are executed in a blood red that has come to be synonymous with the artist The voids that he creates through optical illusions create both an abyss and the infinite, while his pieces often blend architectural structures with biological forms, creating a visual syntax truly his own

The artist has been celebrated for his contribution to the evolution of the manner in which we synthesise art, in 2009 he became the first living British artist to have a solo show at the Royal Academy, London Museums like Tate Modern, London; Moderna Museet, Stockholm and Museum of Modern Art, New York City also permanently house collections of his work One of his latest exhibitions, ‘Painting’, held from October 2021 to February 2022 at the Museum of Modern Art Oxford was a series of his works created during the pandemic Anish Kapoor has also received many awards and titles over his illustrious career, some of the most notable being the Turner Prize in 1991, being elected Royal Academician in 1999, the Padma Bhushan in 2012 and receiving Knighthood in 2013  

One of the more popular examples of his stainless steel discs are the larger public commissioned Sky Mirrors he placed in rural and urban areas to reflect the skies as they changed The first was placed at the Nottingham Playhouse in 2001 and a larger version was set up at the Rockefeller Center in New York City in 2006

Anish Kapoor’s best-known public installations include Cloud Gate at Chicago’s Millennium Park, ArcelorMittal Orbit at London’s Olympic Park and Temenos at Middlehaven in Middlesbrough Be it Cloud Gate and Marsyas, all engage with the environment they are set up in, warping it and immersing viewers in an entirely different world While Cloud Gate is a massive bean-like structure created out of a reflective surface so as to create an almost continuous but altered, entirely new space, Marsyas was a 10 storey high double trumpet shaped sculpture made of bright red PVC