Biography
Hormazd Narielwalla (1979) is a London-based artist who works in collage. Narielwalla uses bespoke Savile Row tailoring patterns, and their antiquarian and contemporary trade counterparts, to create artworks exploring the body in abstract form. His practice began in the workrooms of the tailoring firm Dege & Skinner in London’s Savile Row, with an artist’s book, Dead Man’s Patterns (2008), which reflects on the bespoke suit patterns of deceased customers. Narielwalla has worked with patterns from many sources, including 1970s luxury lingerie (Lady Gardens), antique magazine inserts (Le Petit Echo de la Mode), uniforms from the British Raj (for COLLECT 13), and a 1920s tailoring manual (Hungarian Peacocks, 2013). These artworks propose a new interpretation of tailoring patterns as interesting abstracted drawings of the human form. Freed from function they are drawings ahead of their time, anthropomorphic in origin and beautifully abstract in isolation.
Since Narielwalla’s first Solo Show, Study on Anansi, was sponsored and exhibited by Sir Paul Smith in 2009, he has had critical and commercial success in the art world. In 2013 Saatchi Art online magazine announced Narielwalla as ‘One to Watch’ and in 2014 he won the Saatchi Art Showdown prize – The Body Electric. His work has been commissioned by Crafts Council for the national touring exhibit Block Party (2011) and Collect 13 at the Saatchi Gallery (2013). He exhibits regularly in London, and has shown work in Melbourne, Stockholm and Athens as well as at Scope Art Fair in New York (2010) and the India Art Fair, New Delhi (2014). Other collaborations and associations include Centre of Possible Studies/Serpentine Gallery; Beams Tokyo; V&A Museum Shop; Artbelow; Jigsaw; Tiger of Sweden; Hyatt Regency London – The Churchill and CHART gallery. Narielwalla’s work is held in public and private collections worldwide, including the British Library; the National Art Library, INIVA; Fashion Institute of Technology, New York; and Parsons School of Art & Design, New York.
Narielwalla holds a PhD from University of Arts, London, and is the author of a biography of Master Tailor Michael Skinner, The Savile Row Cutter (Benefactum, 2011).
