Visual Artist Santanu Hazarika Opens Up on Suffering from Depression While Pursuing Engineering

A known doodle artist, illustrator and winner of the RedBull World Doodle Art Champion 2014, Santanu Hazarika, hails from Guwahati, Assam. The 30-year-old creative artist was inclined towards art since his childhood days. Santanu pursued engineering for some time but later dropped out of the course to pursue his dreams.

He recently hit the headlines for being a part of the FIFA Anthem, also featuring Siddhant Chaturvedi, Anushka Manchanda and Divine, which has been made by popular American rapper Lil Baby. The artist, who is in a relationship with actress Shruti Haasan, often appears on her social media posts. In a conversation with News18 Showsha, Santanu talked about the reason why he got selected to be a part of the FIFA Anthem.

Speaking of his experience of working on the project, Santanu says “It was very good. Budweiser had done this campaign where they invited people who have their stories of struggle and breaking stereotypes, and they had invited around 200 artists, and musicians from across the world. Basically, the people who have inspiring stories to come and be part of the FIFA World Cup. So, it was me, Siddhant Chaturvedi, Anushka Manchanda and Divine who were invited to be a part of the global campaign. So, the campaign celebrated our stories, how we were and are now, it was about the struggles we had to face, hardships and the victories we had. All”

“Our individual stories were part of their campaign. We got featured in the video, and we got to watch the match as well, and we became a part of the FIFA as well. So, to become a part of a global phenomenon like FIFA, along with other supremely talented achievers from all around the world was amazing,” concludes Santanu.

Santanu, who dropped out of engineering, also shared when he realised that he can pursue visual art as a profession.

Speaking of what drew his attention towards this profession, Santanu shares, “I used to draw and sketch a lot from a young age. My first introduction to visual arts was through animation and comic books. I used to copy and mimic all the comic book characters, covers and album artworks. Growing up, I used to think art is just a hobby. Also, I never thought this was a profession, especially for where I come from. People don’t really have much idea about art and design and whatnot. It’s always been doctors and engineers and other professionals.”

“At the time, I used to draw graffiti and all, and my friends were also in different occupations so I never thought this was a profession. As I did my engineering in Chennai, other ideas broadened my horizon and then I understood that this is a whole different profession – you can be a designer, you can do visual arts, and that’s when I realised that drawing and creating artworks can be a profession,” he adds.

He also talked about suffering from depression. “I was not very good at my engineering courses. I was depressed throughout my engineering, but I kept drawing. I started working for some of my local brands. I started making album artwork and got 2-3 odd bookings, so, I started working like that. Finally, in the fourth year (engineering), some family friend approached me for World Doodle Art Championship in 2014, I took part in it and I won the national championship first and then I went to the international round also and I won that also. From then I got the confidence that I’m good at this and I can actually make a career out of this. That’s when I dropped out of engineering to pursue the profession of a visual artist and a designer full time,” says Santanu.

When asked to describe his profession, Santanu explained, “A visual artist is a person who has anything to do with a visual medium, starting from painters to graphic designers to mix media artists. It’s like a broad spectrum of art that deals with visuals, and arts and how we see things. So, that is in a nutshell how I define visual arts. Everything that you see around you, for example in an exhibition, an advertisement, a poster, or an album artwork anything of this sort can be considered in the bracket of visual arts. But people are unaware of how to bracket this profession, either they end up saying that this is graphic designing, but visual art is a broader term. I’m an artist and I work with the visual medium so that’s why I would say I’m a visual artist. And also currently, people associate art with hobbies or painting. Visual arts can be a mix of lot many things, even designing includes art.”

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