sumedh rajendran

Born in 1972, Sumedh Rajendran’s work is an assemblage of techniques and disparate materials collapsing the conventional materials such as wood, clay and stone. The tactility of his meticulously crafted objects brings various issues to our conscious while compelling the viewer to experience the comfort and suffering, pleasure and unease simultaneously. He tackles diverse issues such as militarism, ecological and urban atrocities within the contexts of Indian city life.

Sumedh hints at the wider context of human experience while engaging himself with the possibilities of sculptural experimentation. His earlier series had critically examined the predicament of migrations, displacements, angst of marginalized communities and racial discrimination. He juxtaposes the contradictions, contrary values and a social apathy towards it where for example he addresses the sacred and profane on the same level using ceramic tiles, boxes, leather and iron. For this, Sumedh uses industrial materials while giving them an aesthetic value/reading.

An uneasy interface of his composite imagery, surfaces and structures generates meanings with its references to the social and political situations e.g. the accentuated contours of animals, mutilated bodies etc. The process of constant negotiations with the circumstances and the situational contrasts keep recurring in his works. Sumedh firmly believes that the artist is an activist who has to position himself/herself as a socially conscious entity. That makes him chose the images of the common place and language of the people so that he can relate to and share his thoughts, feelings with the people. But he uses it as a metaphor, for something beyond of what that image stands for – where he tries to bring out the invisible by using these images, which we confront, everyday.

Sumedh Rajendran completed his BFA from College of Fine Arts, Trivandrum in 1994 and MFA from Delhi College Of Art in 1999. He lives and works in Noida (U.P)

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