Spotlight on B V Suresh

B V Suresh’s installations introduce a new point of departure for the understanding of painting, video and new media art practice. Originally a painter, BV Suresh is known for creating seemingly living tableau on a canvas and a screen. Suresh’s new media works continue producing an art in a third luminal space where tradition and technology is not as much a hybrid as a transmutation. As an artist whose earlier career was met with much acclaim for his paintings and assemblage, Suresh has challenged the typical demarcations of mediums by animating still surface of a painting while giving form and space to the light and fleeting presence of a video. Suresh’s unique audio-visual elements elevate the viewer in a transfigured moment of action. It is this phenomenological exploration that gives Suresh’s video installations the aura of experiencing a unique, visual poetry.

Golden Quadrilateral initially appears benign in content. The subject is based on a grandiose project of building a national highway network in India— the Golden Quadrilateral project, (the four- and six lane quadrilateral, 3,625 miles long running through 13 states and India’s four largest cities: New Delhi, Calcutta, Chennai and Mumbai), a smoother road grafting Western notions of speed and efficiency, onto a civilization that has always taken the long view.

The projection opens with a composite of painterly video shots and pictures of windmills, express highways, snails juxtaposed against the silhouette of a road worker. As the narrative progresses one sees newspaper and media images of state politicians, and maggots exposing a reality where a civil engineer, Sathyendra Dubey, was murdered for exposing corruption in the project.

Suresh’s installation encourages a thoughtful meditation on dynamic re-definition of art practice in relation to cultural change, and the dialogue between the poetic and the technological dimensions of art. These projects give us a glimpse not only into Suresh’s oeuvre but also into the dynamic visual language that addresses socio-political reality which is more jagged than straight.

The artist has woven many layers and motioned them to project ironic complexities in making right paths and directions.

B. V. Suresh was born in Bangalore in 1960, and studied at the Ken School of Arts in Bangalore. He received his Diploma and Post Diploma in Painting from the Faculty of Fine Arts, M S University in 1985 with a Karnataka Lalitkala Academy Scholarship, and received an MA in Painting in 1987 from Royal College of Arts in London with a scholarship from the Inlaks Foundation.

His select solo exhibitions include Facilitating the Beast, Vadhera Gallery, New Delhi, 2006, Gallery Chemould, Bombay, 1998, Gallery 7, Bombay, 1992, Venkatappa Art Gallery, Bangalore, 1991, Gallery 7, Bombay, 1988. He has participated in numerous group exhibitions such as ‘Through a Glass Darkly : Reflections on the self portrait', Guild Art Gallery, Bombay, 2008, ‘Mechanisms of Motion’, Anant Art Gallery, New Delhi, ‘Guru Poornima’, Sarjan Art Gallery, Baroda 2006, ‘Pachmadi Show’, ABS Gallery, Baroda, 2006, ‘Metamorphosis’, Asian Fusion Gallery, ACC, New York, 2005, ‘Generations’, Kaleidoscope Gallery, Baroda, 2005, ’ Are we like this only’, Vadhera Gallery, New Delhi, 2005, ‘Transgress’, Group Show, Bombay, 2004, ‘Looking Back - Looking Forward’, Sarjan Gallery, Baroda, 2004, ‘Highlights’, Sakshi Gallery, Mumbai, 2003, ‘Banniyan Tree’, Nazar Art Gallery, Baroda, 2002, ‘Once Upon a Time’, Gallery Chemould, Bombay, 2000, ‘New Shoes For Mercury’, Sakshi Gallery, Bombay & Bangalore, 1997, Gift for India, Organised by SAHAMAT on the occasion of 50 years of Indian Independence. Delhi & Bombay, 1997, ‘A Broader Spectrum – IV’, Gallery Chemould.

His many awards include the 1996 Grand Prize at the Sixth Biennial of Contemporary Indian Art, Bharat Bhavan, Bhopal and 1995-96 Senior Fellowship from the Ministry of Human Resources Development, Government of India.

His works have been exhibited extensively throughout India, as well as internationally. In 2002, he exhibited at the 2nd Asian Art Triennial, Fukuoka, Japan, as well as CAN (Concerned Action Now) Show in Delhi. He took part in the AarPar2, India Pakistan Art Exchange Project in Mumbai and Karachi, and was Resident Artist ‘VAFA’ (Vibhavi Academy of Fine Arts) in Colombo, Sri Lanka, as well as ten years of Sakshi, Chitrakalaparishat, Bangalore. In 1997 he took part in the Gift for India, in Delhi and Bombay, Organized by SAHAMAT on the Occasion of 50 Years of Indian Independence. In 1995 he exhibited in Post Card for Gandhi, SAHAMAT, Delhi and other cities. His work has been exhibited in the UK, Australia and France, as well as New York.

Besides numerous art exhibits, Suresh worked on stage and prop design in 2000 in Navlaka – Lao Jiu (Ninth Born), Directed by Anuradha Kapoor at the Asian Art Festival, New National Theatre, Tokyo. He also worked on illustrations for children’s books in 1991 for “Gadbad Ghotala,” by Safdar Hashmi, and “The Walking Stick,” a Pictorial Story Book, IBH in 1988. “The Walking Stick” was made into a digital video (5 min) in 2000, which was shown at the Chemould Gallery in Bombay at the “Once Upon a Time” exhibit.

Suresh has taken part in numerous art camps throughout India and has conducted several workshops, including an Animation Workshop in 2005 at Sahyadri School KFI, Pune, and in 1997 as a visiting lecturer at S.N. School of Visual Arts, Performing & Communication, Hyderabad University.

Most recently, he has been involved in digitally generated video art, including “Retakes of the Shadow”“The Tale of the Talking Face”(5 min), shown at Durban, South Africa, 2006; (3 min) in 2006; `I` Are we like this only, (11 min) Vadhera Gallery, New Delhi, 2005, as well as “Introspection,” (5 min), which was shown in 2002 at the Apejay Media Gallery in New Delhi and in 2001 at the South Asia Film Festival at Kathmandu, Nepal.