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B.V. Suresh first moved away from a predominantly painterly language in the late nineties, shifting to mixed media assemblages held together within a framework resembling domestic furniture. Preetha Nair, who worked on the text for one of his exhibition catalogues, describes her excitement: "Getting used to some of that indefinable darkness that pervades them, eyes shifting, searching and resting only briefly, moving from one form to the next...
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B.V. Suresh first moved away from a predominantly painterly language in the late nineties, shifting to mixed media assemblages held together within a framework resembling domestic furniture. Preetha Nair, who worked on the text for one of his exhibition catalogues, describes her excitement: "Getting used to some of that indefinable darkness that pervades them, eyes shifting, searching and resting only briefly, moving from one form to the next mark, from a bunch of cherries to a golden egg, the saffron bait, a hand grenade, miles of rope, embroidered forms, holes, crevices, a virginal sewing-machine...".
The personal and the confessional had always characterized his work, even as a student in Baroda, when the overtones of the kind of language used by the British painter R.B. Kitaj, widely discussed at the time, was very much in evidence. A subtle shift had occurred within this larger concern while studying in London. The immediacy of the day to day which had earlier served as a focal point of reference seemed "too foreign and too superficial" to actually move him deeply and. the only meaningful source seemed to be the universality which binds the experience of suffering, transcending as it did geographical and cultural constraints. Whether it was the slaughter of contaminated reindeer in Norway or the rise of fundamentalism in India, it affected the innocent and culpable alike. Working with dense overlapping layers of paint, he created vast ambiguous areas which could accommodate the personal within the more definable configuration of the event in question, the latter conveyed through the use of recognizable symbols.
Free-standing or hung, his work bears the familiar premonition of oppression and guilt: the viewer becomes one more component, frozen in passivity and an unwilling partner to crime; "not allowed the release or the glory of martyrdom, but only the eternal pain of the weight."
In his more recent works, whether digital prints, video, or painting, Suresh offers a nuanced exploration of some of the key issues that confront us today, most prominently, the growing culture of communalism and violence we are faced with. Through these works, the artist questions history and its modes of narration, and also, the circulation of images engendered by mass media.
As Baroda based critic, Deeptha Achar, explains in one of the artist's recent exhibition catalogues, "One can see how Suresh’s artwork is demonstrably located within the arena of public debate. Its interventional status allows the material composition of his artworks to be located in a complex field of arguments that sets up and deploys its ideologically loaded significance in a manner that modulates and inflects competing meanings. In such a situation, the work cannot be construed as the mere expression of an artist’s meanings, nor can the intentions of the artist be the final arbiter of its meaning. Insofar as the artist professes or claims the work, he gets positioned as a public intellectual intervening through and across the unstable meanings proposed by the artwork. The artist who offers commentary from within a given context, however, must be distinguished from the modernist conception of the vanguard where the artist is positioned before and ahead of a society mired in convention."
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Born
1960
Bangalore Karnataka
Education
1985-87 Master of Arts (Painting), Royal College Of Arts, London
1983-85 Post Diploma in Painting, Faculty of Fine Arts, Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, Gujarat
1978-83 Diploma in Painting, Faculty of Fine Arts, Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, Gujarat
1975-78 Ken School of Arts, Bangalore, Karnataka
Exhibitions
Selected Solo Exhibitions
2006 ‘Facilitating the Beast’,...
Selected Solo Exhibitions
2006 ‘Facilitating the Beast’, Vadehra Gallery, New Delhi
1998 Gallery Chemould, Mumbai
1992 Gallery 7, Mumbai
1991 Venkatappa Art Gallery, Bangalore, Karnataka
1988 Gallery 7, Mumbai
Selected Group Exhibitions
2011-12 'Back to School: Baroda 1979-89', Tao Art Gallery, Mumbai
2011 'Back to School: Baroda 1979-89', Palette Art Gallery, New Delhi
2010 'Abreast Totems', Mon Art Gallerie, Kolkata
2008-09 'Time Transcendent', Tamarind Art, New York
2008 'Mechanisms of Motion', Anant Art Centre, New Delhi
2007 ‘Here and Now: Young Voices from India’, Grosvenor Vadehra, London
2006 ‘Guru Poornima’, Sarjan Art Gallery, Vadodara, Gujarat
2006 ‘Pachmadi Show’, ABS Gallery, Vadodara, Gujarat
2005 ‘Metamorphosis’, Asian Fusion Gallery, ACC, New York.
2005 ‘Generations’, Kaleidoscope Gallery, Vadodara, Gujarat
2005 ‘Are We Like This Only’, Vadehra Gallery, New Delhi
2005 ‘Transgress’, Priyasri Art Gallery, Mumbai
2004 ‘Looking Back - Looking Forward’, Sarjan Gallery, Vadodara, Gujarat
2003 ‘Highlights’, Sakshi Gallery, Mumbai
2002 ‘Banyan Tree’, Nazar Art Gallery, Vadodara, Gujarat
2000 ‘Once Upon a Time’, Gallery Chemould, Mumbai
1997 ‘New Shoes For Mercury’, Sakshi Gallery, Mumbai; Bangalore, Karnataka
1997 ‘Gift for India’, Organized by SAHAMAT on the occasion of 50 years of Indian Independence, New Delhi; Mumbai
1996 ‘A Broader Spectrum – IV’, Gallery Chemould, Mumbai
1996 Vadehra Gallery, New Delhi
1996 Lakeeren Gallery, Mumbai
1995 ‘Post Card for Gandhi’, SAHAMAT, New Delhi and other cities
1994 Shraddha Rehabilitation Foundation Fund Raising Exhibition, Jehangir Art Gallery, Mumbai
1992 ‘Parallel Perceptions’, Organized by Sakshi, New Delhi
1991 ‘Artists against Communalism: Images and Words’, SAHMAT, New Delhi and 15 other cities.
1989 ‘Indian Eclectics’, Rabindra Bhavan, New Delhi
1989 ‘Artists Alert’, Exhibition for Safdar Hashmi Memorial Trust, New Delhi
1987 Degree Show, Royal College of Art, London
1984 Gallery Chingari, Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh
Participations
2014 'Aesthetic Bind: Cabinet Closet Wunderkammer', on the coccassion of 50 Years of Contemporary Art at Chemould Prescott Road, Mumbai
2012 'The Calendar Project: Iconography in the 20th Century', part of Project CINEMA CITY: Research Art & Documentary Practices presented by National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA) and Ministry of Culture, Government of India at National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA), Mumbai
2012 'Art for Humanity', Coomaraswamy Hall, Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya, Mumbai
2002 CAN (Concerned Action Now) Show in New Delhi
2002 ‘AarPar2’, India Pakistan Art Exchange Project in Mumbai and Karachi
1996 Sixth Biennial of Contemporary Indian Art, Bharat Bhavan , Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh
1988 First Biennial of Print Exhibition at Bharat Bhavan, Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh
1978-84 Samyojitha Group Exhibitions, Bangalore, Karnataka
1978 All India Art Exhibition, Bangalore, Karnataka
Honours and Awards
1996 Grand Prize at Sixth Biennial of Contemporary Indian Art, Bharat Bhavan, Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh
1995-96 Senior fellowship from ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India
1985-87 Inlaks Foundation Scholarship
1983-84 Karnataka Lalit Kala Academy Exhibition award
1983 Mysore Dasara Exhibition Award, Karnataka
1978-85 Karnataka Lalit Kala Academy Scholarship
1996 Grand Prize at Sixth Biennial of Contemporary Indian Art, Bharat Bhavan, Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh
1995-96 Senior fellowship from ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India
1985-87 Inlaks Foundation Scholarship
1983-84 Karnataka Lalit Kala Academy Exhibition award
1983 Mysore Dasara Exhibition Award, Karnataka
1978-85 Karnataka Lalit Kala Academy Scholarship
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How would you explain the shifts which have occurred in your painting, for instance during the time that you left Baroda for London and after your return?
In Baroda, I was so tuned to seeing things from daily life and painting 'subjects'. When I went to London and started to look around, I felt it too foreign, too superficial for me to get into the subject matter so deeply. Then I started reading books and...
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How would you explain the shifts which have occurred in your painting, for instance during the time that you left Baroda for London and after your return?
In Baroda, I was so tuned to seeing things from daily life and painting 'subjects'. When I went to London and started to look around, I felt it too foreign, too superficial for me to get into the subject matter so deeply. Then I started reading books and looking at documentaries of World War II and these kind of disasters on the BBC. I used to even shoot pictures from the television - the results were very interesting and very moving to me.
Could you say something about the teachers who guided you through this period of change?
During my period at the Royal College, Yehuda Shafran and Peter de Francia were two people who made me realize certain abstract elements in my work. Ken Kiff used to pass by my studio and comment on my painting but at that time he didn't have much of an influence on me. It was when I actually returned that certain things he used to say became very important. His process of working helped me to configure the kind of interest that I had in the ambiguous element and by almost a kind of magic to bring it to the surface.
One notices that some of the titles you use are specific to larger issues. Are they isolated instances or do these themes dominate an entire body of work?
The work that I showed in Chemould in 1998 was in fact entirely to do with fundamentalism and it's interference in society. But these things are actually internalized through a personal experience or a problem and parallel to the issues dealt with. There is an ambiguity in it and a slipping into the very personal which also works for the spectator.
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PAST StoryLTD AUCTIONS
Showing
2
of
2
works
Lot 32
Details
Absolute Tuesdays
20 May 2025
Untitled
Acrylic on canvas
35.75 x 47.5 in
Winning bid
$429
Rs 36,000
(Inclusive of buyer's premium)
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Lot 10
Details
Absolute Tuesdays
25 May 2021
Untitled
Watercolour on paper
10.75 x 14.5 in
Winning bid
$210
Rs 15,120
(Inclusive of buyer's premium)
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