If you look at Henil Mistry's Instagram account, you'd probably think that he's a student of the arts. His caricatures are fun, edgy and pretty spot on! You'll definitely notice how different they are from your regular caricatures. But Henil isn't a trained artist, he's actually a UX designer for an MNC in Bengaluru. Taking us back to the beginning, Henil says, "Like any other child, I was into painting and drawing. But it was a lot deeper for me. Art courses through my veins, my grandfather was a great artist. He was invited to countries like Dubai to put up exhibitions and even paint portraits. That's how I got interested in portraits and started doing them when I was in Class XII."
After graduating from school, Henil went on to study engineering at Sarvajanik College of Engineering and Technology, Gujarat. No, this isn't the story of a self-made artist who loses his passion, thanks to his studies, only to find it again years later. It's quite the opposite really. "The college where I studied never stopped us from pursuing our passion or interests. I had participated and represented the Gujarat Technological University at the National Youth Festival. There, I created live portraits and paintings, and won the college several accolades," says the 24-year-old. He adds that while he started with portraits, he found his true passion in caricature.
Hailing from a Gujarati family, Henil reckons that he has been blessed with a solid business mind even when it comes to his passion. "I started taking up commissioned work to create portraits as well as caricatures. Usually, people customising wedding invitations or birthday cards get caricatures drawn on the cards. It is a new and fun trend, and I also get to earn a decent amount of money, apart from my regular income," says Henil.
Henil recently participated in Caricature Resolution's 2021 challenge. Caricature Resolution is an Instagram page that conducts a month-long challenge every January where a list of personalities are put up for artists to draw caricatures of. "Every day, we were supposed to create one caricature of a famous personality and post it on Instagram. In this process, I created 31 caricatures of famous celebrities worldwide. It was not just fun, the challenge also helped me learn new things. Some of the personalities included Christine Lagarde, Tia Carrere, Hayao Miyazaki, Kate McKinnon, Mary J Blige and Hrithik Roshan," says Henil. What made his caricatures stand out from the many others who participated in the challenge? He pipes in, "I included the rough sketch with a description of the person's key features. I hope it helps some budding artist learn the process."