SUNITA MAHARJAN’S “STRUCTURAL SPACE”
Sunita’s “Locus of Continuity” with interlacing and disarranged lines at her BFA solo exhibition last year was much appreciated. This time, too, she has used lines, but in a new light, that it constructs interlacing layers of spaces. So her current series is accordingly titled “Structural Space.”
Her paintings, mostly in oil pastel and acrylic, play with the positive and negative space to create three-dimensional illusions that draw you into the space. For Sunita, however, the space created is not just a result of lines interlacing one another, but also of her thought process and personal experience.
“When I walk on bridges, I don’t only see the iron rods making up the bridge but also the river flowing below it through the gaps,” explains Sunita, “These two images then visually move in and out, creating an illusion in my mind; and this experience I transform to structural forms in my art.”
Similarly, she also reflects on her experience of moving dancers, and the fluidity surrounding the space, in circles. The patterns of the Baghchal chess game chalked out on the streets during the recent Maoist Banda also became her structural forms that have a political baghchal (tiger’s moves) situation as her inception theme.
Another fascinating concept in her artwork in the series is of iron rods of construction works. The artist relates this with weaving blocks, and their growing process as similar to the natural growth process of our own bodies. Further, she connects it with the passing of time and growth that lie woven into the structure.
Besides, for Sunita, the series is not just forms on canvases. The contradiction created by the rods and the boundless air entrapped within the space of the entwined frames, she
says poetically resemble “the contradictions of my own life.”
SANJEEV MAHARJAN’S “REPEATING BODIES”
Sanjeev’s work might be termed a risky step if you consider the commercial aspect because for the series, he mostly paints bloody carcasses of slaughtered pigs.
However, the artist says, “I’m satisfied with my work as it came out naturally in my process of exploration of my own capacities as an artist. I’m happy I did this.”
Saleable or otherwise, his works are engrossing. Especially, his initial works done with the drawing ink medium aptly portrays the blood-splattered scenes of a slaughterhouse.
“Drawing ink has a blood-like quality, being translucent, and it was a great medium for what I was about to draw,” shares Sanjeev.
However, after some paintings, he ran out of his drawing ink stock and unfortunately so did the market. In his later works, he also uses acrylic, normal ink and collages.
The different medium does not just add variety but also brings out a different aspect to his theme that takes on more abstract forms.
“Repeating Bodies,” he says is a portrayal of the meat market in his community, and the repeating images he has been seeing all through his life – memories of whole live creatures turning into carcasses, then into formless pieces and then nothing. With an independent working environment at the residency, Sanjeev says he is glad he had this chance to take a risk.
“The fear that you won’t meet expectations and disappoint viewers will be there. But until you explore, you never know,” says the artist, and adds, “But this isn’t final. The series is yet again a part of exploration and knowing yourself as an artist.”
Related story
Dr Shekhar Koirala meets Deuba to discuss faulty forms, discipl...
