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Concordia Winter 2022

The Artist

Simran Kumar (2009-2016) recalls his time at MTS and writes about his journey towards becoming an artist.

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Despite this, I have no regrets about taking Natural Sciences at university. I developed invaluable skills as a scientist and thinker that I continue to benefit from and, now that the pressure gauge has released, I am beginning to fall in love with the subject again. I took on the challenge, learnt a huge amount about myself and my subject, and left university with a conviction to return to the arts. Picking up an art practice that had dried up considerably since A Level was a daunting task, but my break came in February 2021, when I was offered the chance to return to MTS for four months as an Art teacher and artist-in-residence. It was during these four months that I re-built the work ethic necessary for a fulfilling art practice and when I conceived the project that I am working on today. Returning to MTS was an extraordinary experience; I learnt to appreciate the school in a way I had not as a student, and I am still so grateful for the support of Ingrid Lumsden and Sasha Leech. Thanks to them, I am now in a position to begin commercialising my art practice. I have set up a website, www.simrankumar.com, which displays my main work. My current art practice My current project focuses on a re-imagining of scenes and ideas from the Hindu spiritual canon.

Memories of MTS My first memory of MTS was of the current Sixth-Form art studio prior to the 11+ exams, and the opportunity to do art there was the main reason MTS was my top pick amongst other schools. Memories along the road are countless, from getting lost on the way to the games fields, to finding new ways to skip the lunch queue, to working out what I actually enjoyed doing versus what I saw other people enjoy. All of this helped to develop my independence and sense of self. I took Maths, Physics, and Art at A Level, a choice that I am proud of. There should be no pressure on 16-year-olds to make premature decisions over their career paths, and picking the subjects that I enjoyed the most has really helped me down the line. My road to becoming an artist I studied Natural Sciences for my Bachelor’s degree. I was torn between pursuing Art or Physics after my A Levels; I was good at and enjoyed both, but Physics offered the more secure path through my career and more tangible routes to success. However, university-level Physics proved very challenging for me, and over time my passion for the subject was eroded by ruthless mathematical procedures.