Sunil Kumar
Sree is a young artist from Chennai, nurtured in the contemporary tread of
abstraction which is dominant in Chennai. His
large oeuvre of work deals with recycling tangible objects like train tickets
into a large abstract compositions. Conceptual ideas like a video recording of
seed growing in a condom, shot in time lapse and displayed on a small flat
screen TV monitor.
During his
1.Shanthiroad Artist Residency, Sunil Kumar Sree has been
exploring the concept of the skin as a sheath, cover or a container. By
focusing on his skin he draws our attention to birthmarks, wounds and
abrasions that are part of his own identity and body/landscape. In the
process of pushing his limits into another dimension the artist uses the
canvases as a cube or a container. This is seen emptying used paper cups
with marks, crushed and is memory of a gesture of time calculated by the
change of matter.
Sunil’s exploration have been using the limitations of
abstractions into another realm. Here the process of mark making becomes a
gesture of using fragmented lines to mark time. The play with materials gives
it another dimension opening a new window to the process of exploration.
Another motif of the skin is rebirth or renewal. The ability to shed it's old
skin when outgrown. The casting off of this skin metaphorically, represents the
letting go of old ways and looking at the fresh new skin which is seen as a new
beginning.
In the
Southern Indian context skin is associated with identity; its colour can
suggest Dravidian ancestry of dark complexion. It has also been a signifier of
racial and caste politics. In Sunil’s new work there is an attempt to get under
the skin of the matter and probe its boundaries and displays the self through
the surface and explores the fragility of the body and it’s memory through the
skin as canvas.
Suresh
Jayaram
1Shanthiroad
Studio Space
Sunil’s
project is part of the Young artist residency supported by VAC- Visual Art
Collective Trust
