Ganesh Selvaraj
Seed
2018
Collage
36 x 91.44 x 4 cms
Ganesh Sevaraj (b. 1976, Chennai) has done his Bachelors and Masters in Fine arts from Chennai and PG Diploma in Print Making from Edinburgh, UK. Coming out of the Chennai tradition of painting that saw the introduction of Tantric painting in the 1960’s and 70’s, he is similarly interested in the process of being and of making.
Selvaraj is focused on poetically describing identity, existence and experience as encrypted in the periphery of our vision, between the footnotes of our human pages and within the blankets of our memories. Existence itself is an experience, a universal phenomena, says the artist, every existence has its own experiences. Experiencing existence in my own solitary way gives me pleasure towards my existence. My existential journeying finds transformation in my process of art-making and my final found forms. To Selvaraj, the creative process must be one that embodies the experience of living. Likewise, the finished work must be life itself. These new works on paper demonstrate this well. Many are executed on graph paper or on specially-devised grids. They are carried out hypnotically; whether it is blocks of lines within rectangles and further lines within them or else squares within a grid coloured in a set colour scheme. Within each ruler line or square of colour one senses all the elements of Selvaraj's living the breaths taken, the blinks made, the yawns and smiles drawn, the thoughts, memories and ideas that came and went through his mind. Selvaraj's time and passage is explored in every work in this indirect manner. The works imply an elegant ordered truth: we are born, we reproduce, we die. Further elaborated: we are born, were produce, we are happy, we are sad, we die. Still further: we are born, we reproduce, we are happy, we are sad, we try to break this cycle of happiness and sadness, we die. Ganesh Selvaraj shows us the multiplicity and limitation within the ordered universe we live in and does it with heart. He implies existential questions: what if we could feed a persons life into a barcode and feel it afterwards? On the one hand, a person cannot be summed up in one conversation or even after several years friendship. On the other, are we not the make-up of the lines on our forehead? Isn't that the best and most infinite way to sum up a human being?
A recipient of numerous art awards and grands including Charles Wallace India Fellowship and Asia Pacific International art award, Seoul, Ganesh has participated in over 35 Group and Solo art exhibitions worldwide. His works can be found in many public and private collections in India and abroad.
courtesy of affordableartfair.com, thenoblesage.com