Important Notice

Initially trained as a painter at the Sir J.J. School of Art in Mumbai, Sudarshan Shetty’s oeuvre presently straddles media ranging from painting and photography to kinetic sculpture and installation art. One factor that bridges the artist’s work across these diverse genres, however, is the deliberately whimsical and irrational juxtaposition of everyday scenes and objects in his work. Deeply aware of the limitations imposed on the individual by... Initially trained as a painter at the Sir J.J. School of Art in Mumbai, Sudarshan Shetty’s oeuvre presently straddles media ranging from painting and photography to kinetic sculpture and installation art. One factor that bridges the artist’s work across these diverse genres, however, is the deliberately whimsical and irrational juxtaposition of everyday scenes and objects in his work. Deeply aware of the limitations imposed on the individual by social mores, economic status and political positioning, these contrasts serve to free the viewer, if even for a moment, from the routines and impositions of daily life.

In the bizarre, alternate worlds Shetty constructs, tyrannosauruses make love to automobiles, large bananas sail the open waters with steamships, and fish skeletons swim in puddles of milk. The present lot, one of a series of photorealist interiors painted by the artist, at first seems to depict an ordinary kitchen and the bathroom it leads into. On closer examination, however, the viewer comes across an inverted skull and spine, floating peacefully next to a column of lights above the kitchen counter.

Apart from offering them an avenue of release from their humdrum existence, this work also challenges viewers to cross-examine the ‘ordinary’, instead of taking it, and the controls it imposes on them, for granted.

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