Rajendar Kumar Tiku
Rajendar Kumar Tiku is an acclaimed Sculptor MMOGA in India and abroad, who has been working in Jammu & Kashmir for the last more than thirty years. In addition to his own work as a professional sculptor, he also taught at the Institute of Fine Arts at Jammu and Srinagar. Sh. Tiku is known for his creative replica bags treatment of form and the innovative methods of material application in contemporary sculpture. His idea of sculpture as the 'materialisation of thought' finds a wide acclaim and use among the generation of sculptors that have followed him.
Born on 6th February, 1953, in Village Wadwan, Tehsil Budgam, Kashmir, Sh. Tiku completed his Bachelors Degree in Science in 1976, followed by a Degree in Law in 1978 from Kashmir University. He simultaneously pursued his formal training in sculpture at the Institute of Fine Arts Srinagar and completed his five - year specialization in 1978. Though licensed to practice law, he got more interested in the field of sculpture and carried on with stone carving at various places, including the wayside stone carving workshops in Srinagar Kashmir.
He joined as a faculty at the Institute of Fine Arts Jammu in 1979 and steadily carried on his professional work as a sculptor and his academic engagement as a teacher. Ever since, his primary efforts have been to explore, understand and absorb the local ethos to apply it to transform it into a sculptural idiom with a global identity, yet preserving its essential individual character. Along with the development in his own work, he has always tried to inculcate in his students a sense of affinity for their surrounding and introduced them to newer possibilities of application of sculpture in areas of design, monumental & environmental projects, portraiture and other allied fields.
From 1990, Sh. Tiku has been having regular solo shows of his work at Delhi, Varanasi, Jammu and other places. He has also participated in innumerable international and national level art exhibitions held in India and abroad including China, Germany, Switzerland and Israel. He has participated and contributed his work in a large number of national and international level symposiums on stone carving, clay and metal casting, and sculptural installation at Mumbai, Hyderabad, Bhopal, Gwalior, Chennai, Kozikhode, Bhubaneswar, Varanasi, Jaipur, Lucknow, Jammu, Maloat (Israel), Sion (Switzerland), Queens Town (Newzealand) and many other places. He has been a member of various invited artist groups that have undertaken cultural travels through Combodia, Thailand, Russia, Turkey, Egypt, Switzerland, Israel, Singapore and Newzealand.
Sh. Tiku is recipient of a number of awards and honours for his work. Later this year, he will be working as visiting professor at Musashino Art University, Tokyo. For his project 'Interface', to work on monumental stone sculpture in relation to places of heritage importance in India, he was granted the Pollock Krasner Foundation (USA) grant in 2005. In 1998, the Rashtriya Lalit Kala Akademi, nominated him a juror. Through 1997-1999, he received a Senior Fellowship of the Department of Culture, Ministry of HRD, Govt. of India for his work in sculpture along with the study of application of colour in contemporary Indian sculpture. Before this he had received a junior Fellowship for his work in sculpture. Lalit Kala Akademi awarded him Triennale India Award of Honour for his outstanding contribution in the 8th Triennale India 1994 and National Akademi Award in 1993. He also received J&K State Award in 1978 & 79. He has worked as jury for the Lalit Kala Akademi Awards, the Kalidass Samman, and various AIFACS awards. In addition to delivering lectures he has made presentations at various professional and academic forums in New Delhi, Hyderabad, Vadodara, Ahmedabad, South Galilee Art college, Israel, the Association of Swiss Painters, Sculptors & Architects, Sion – Swizterland. His articles on art have been published in Lalit Kala Contemporary Art Heritage, Kashmir Sentinel and Exhibition catalogues of various artists.
His works are in the collection of National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi, Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi. The Art Heritage Foundation, Jammu & Kashmir Cultural Akademi, University of Jammu, City of Sion (Switzerland), the City of Maloat (Israel), cities of Hyderabad, Bhopal, Khozikode and a number of Corporate Art Foundations and Art Centres.
