Important Notice

Om Soorya paints surreal landscapes that are occupied by both negative and positive energies, which he depicts in many different forms.

His use of pigment is fluid and intuitive. The mood created by his rich deep tones and lines, which vary from crisp to watery blurs, is much like a twilight zone – the time in-between events; neither here nor there. The absence of figuration in Soorya’s works renders these already isolated...
Om Soorya paints surreal landscapes that are occupied by both negative and positive energies, which he depicts in many different forms.

His use of pigment is fluid and intuitive. The mood created by his rich deep tones and lines, which vary from crisp to watery blurs, is much like a twilight zone – the time in-between events; neither here nor there. The absence of figuration in Soorya’s works renders these already isolated environments even more abandoned, making them seem as though they are frozen in time and space.

Soorya has always maintained that aesthetics are just as important as content. Lighting plays an integral role in creating the transcendental feel that his paintings have, as also in giving them their ethereal glow. Together with the other elements of his compositions, it enables the viewer to sense the fragile relationship between the meditative Zen-like quality of the painting and the overwhelming anxieties of material living.

As the artist notes, “My recent works are an extension of the style of painting which I have been practicing for a few years. When I started this language, my main concern and challenge was how to have a dialogue between the conventional idea of painting and new urban visions; how to bring a meditative space of silence from new urban complexities. The new Indian urban man satisfies his spiritual and meditative sensualities by visually consuming the new landscape from a very different perspective. In reality we don’t have time to spend enjoying a sunset or sunrise. Everywhere there is wall in the wall, a very flat surface of ideas. What all we have is a breath of silence when we see a panoramic night view from our apartment terrace. The urban man has limited his spiritual quest to his new possible positive visual sensibilities. In a very informative world chatting on the internet has assumed the form of chanting mantras. Surfing has become a kind of mediation. The new generation has learned to consume an alternative physical space for its own existence. Here my paintings are limited to explore these possibilities of visual sensibilities. While the world is shrinking to the space of a shell, the imaginative space is exploding to new sensibilities. By creating a very personalized landscape of language what I want to provide is a breathing meditative space of visual reality.”

Om Soorya was born in 1977 in Kerala. In 1998 he graduated with a degree in History from Calicut University. He then went on to complete his Bachelor’s degree in painting from the College of Fine Arts, Thiruvananthapuram, followed by a Master’s degree in the same from the University of Hyderabad in 2004. Soorya has participated in a number of solo shows including ‘Random Mirrors in the City of Villagers’ at the Guild Art Gallery, New York, in 2007; and ones held at the Birla Academy of Art and Culture, Mumbai, in 2007 and State Gallery of Fine Arts, in 2006. Amongst his group shows are, ‘Interlude: Venice/Kassel’ and ‘Linkages/Dialogues’ at the Guild Gallery, Mumbai, in 2008 and 2007 respectively; Nature Morte, New Delhi, in 2007. In 2007, Soorya received the first Emerging Artist Award from the Foundation for Indian Contemporary Art (FICA), and he has participated in residencies in Hyderabad and New Delhi.

The artist lives and works in Hyderabad, India.

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