Maesthri’s love letter
by Vasundhara Sellamuthu
A rectangular block of cement, over five feet high, squiggles splashed across its grey surface. Shavings — from where the cement has been worked on by tools — curl inward, dry, jutting out fragilely. Iron rods pierce through its body and gape at the viewer, making the block come alive. It’s a sight all too familiar in the streets of cities where new buildings grow like moss on stone, so it is surprising to see it as a piece of art. “I wanted to pull out a fragment of wall and put it inside a white room to highlight the art in it,” says artist and curator Vasundhara Sellamuthu. “These cement slabs, to me, represent the stage before the final product has taken shape. They are full of potential.”
Drawn hastily on one of the slabs is a heart pierced by an arrow, the artist’s initials, ‘VS’ inside it. Scribbles, doodles and etchings made by serrated rakes and binding wires fill the space. “Masons expect the cement to be tiled over, they don’t expect the cement to be seen, so they don’t care what is scribbled on it,” she says. “In this way, it is like their mark left on the city.”
Vasundhara has a background in Architecture, and it reflects in her outdoor installation as well: a 2D model of the Domino House by Le Corbusier, that set the precedent for the grid-and-column structure of modern buildings. She covers the installation in colourful blinking lights, like the ones found in Amman festivals, to celebrate its influence on the Indian urban landscape. “My love for everything about buildings reflects in my art.”
Field and form
by Arvind Sundar
For a major part of his life, Arvind has been obsessed with grids, going on to do a thesis on grids’ role in art. But it was after a trip to Italy that he began thinking about grids as not just components in two dimensional, but also as tools for exploring space.
His installation involves a series of individual works on grids, that are put next to each other to twist perspective. Bold black brush strokes run on top of muted screenprinted grids; parallel lines creating the illusion of depth. At first glance, an individual piece looks like abstract geometry, unimpressive in its simplicity. However, together, the pieces look like a map of a futuristic city, torn and rearranged.
“I did these in one night when I was in Cincinnati, US, after my previous work that was supposed to be displayed got rejected,” he reveals.
His other work, a bold blue-green square grid, lies on the floor. The strokes are more fluid, drippy even. It looks like a lair of cubes, cutting each other, and constantly forcing you to shift your perspective.
Resonance
by Sujeeth Kumar
Paraffin soot-coated wooden blocks: This was what Sujeeth visualised in his mind’s eye, when he read some literature on forest fires. ‘Even if a tree catches fire, it dances elegantly,’ was the phrase that kept coming back to him. He translated his idea of smoke onto both wood and canvas, using soot from a candle.
Sujeeth’s installation consists of blocks of wood and canvas marked with black paraffin designs. “I run the blocks over a candle flame to get these patterns,” he explains. His other displayed work are stainless steel plates, acid-etched, with colliding black concentric circles mimicking ripples on water’s surface. “I hate the sound that steel wool makes while cleaning plates,” he says, “This is the visual representation of that auditory tick.”
Drawing Index was held at the Cholamandal Artists' Village, Injambakkam, from January 12 to 14.
