Gautam Bhatia

I trained as an architect, which mostly taught me to draw a straight line and then spend a lifetime breaking it. The buildings eventually leaked into everything — drawings, bronze, fiberglass, mud and wax — until it was all one argument carried on in different materials.

What I keep coming back to is the city — its politics, its headlines, the glorious chaos it insists on in place of the order it keeps promising. It refuses to behave, which is the most honest thing about it.

People call the results satire. I only ever meant to be truthful — and the truth, seen straight on, is usually funnier and sadder than we let on. Beauty and absurdity keep sharing a room. These days I just let them.