NFN (NO FIRST NAME) KAYLAN

The Tiananmen Square tank man has been a central part of NFN Kalyan’swork for years. The anonymous protestor became famous, the world over, for standing in front of an oncoming row of Type 59 tanks. He represented the best in all of us; the courage we all hope we have. Kalyan’s work is always a visual assault on the viewer. It represents what’s coming and we can’t stop it. In The Tank Man series, the viewer is put into the painting themselves. Desaturated figures and landscapes face the oncoming goldframes. We stand with them. Through the progression of paintings, that motif is stretched, examined, rotated, and finally broken. Human innocence is questioned, and the mirror is turned on the viewer. In turn, we march, invade, get assaulted, or simply brush our teeth. In each case, the goldframe says something to us, about our actions. We can’t stop what’s coming because it is us. The harder we push the further forward we move. We are both the Man and the Tank.

"The great people we have killed, the environment we have destroyed and the lies we tell ourselves are terrible things. But we are supposed to hate the sin and love the sinner. The sinner is every one who looks at my work. And the sinner is me. Because we are all human."

- NFN Kalyan

NFN (No First Name) Kalyan spent his youth in India and the US, being born of Indian and American parents. Combined with the fact that his mother (Ph.D. philosopher) and his Father (Ph.D. mathematician) reached the heights of academia in their respective fields, Kalyanʼs work comes from a place of deep intellect and cultural/religious/philosophical diversity. Each one of Kalyan's works is about the destructive nature of the human condition. He is hard but empathetic with the message:

"The great men we have killed, the environment we have destroyed, and the lies we tell ourselves are terrible things. But we are supposed to hate the sin and love the sinner. And the sinner is everyone who looks at my work. And the sinner is me. Because we are all human."

- NFN Kalyan

Kalyan chose to explore and master many artistic disciplines, but hasalways been reluctant to "show" in the conventional art world, as he felt thatit was important that the work was created, but not important whether it was deemed to have monetary value.