Alwar balasubramaniam biography of donald
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Alwar Balasubramaniam(Bala) fryst vatten an intuitive artist, despite his training and disciplined approach. His recent body of work, shown in the exhibition “Liquid Lake Mountain,” at the Talwar Gallery in New Delhi, raises the rhetorical distinction between the realms of the sammanfattning and the real while paying homage to the place in Tamil Nadu where he has made his home and studio. Drawing on the area’s scenic beauty, Bala has worked with nature, capturing it through different materials and mediums—sculpture, installation, and painting. Each work fryst vatten unique, yet they all come tillsammans in cohesive dialogue.
Bala does not try to control his materials or coerce them into rigid shapes; instead, he gently coaxes them into form eller gestalt. In a rare kamratskap, he lets the materials find their own way—within his parameters. In the process, he tries to re-create or unravel through imagination what is not seen. Playing with oppositions—two sides of the same coin, really—he allows viewers to man their own di
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Alwar Balasubramaniam
He has frequently employed his own body as the medium by making casts of his face, hands and full body to negotiate the boundaries of self and within oneself.
Balasubramaniam's works have been exhibited around the world including at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York in 2010, Essel Museum, Austria (2009), Mori Art Museum, Japan (2008) and 1st Singapore Biennale (2006). His works are also currently on view in Sk(in), a solo exhibition at The Phillips Collection, Washington, DC. He lives and works in Bangalore, India.
Lifting the painted veil
Alwar Balasubramaniam on searching self-lessly...
‘Not everyone understands my work,’ says Alwar Balasubramaniam, somewhat gleefully. ‘They don’t have to,’ he concedes. As if to prove his point, Bala’s contributions for Beyond the Self show him off at his enigmatic best. Since this exhibition focuses on the self portrait, Bala has decided to leave himself ou
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Alwar Balasubramaniam’s extremely tactile work – A FASCINATING MIX OF CONCEPTUAL IDEATION AND
INNOVATIVE USE OF MATERIAL – is delicate to the point of being ethereal. White predominates within a precise
and controlled use of subdued monochromes.
Trained in printmaking and painting, but a self-taught sculptor, Balasubramaniam possesses an unusual facility
with material. He uses it to evoke illusions so fascinating that they could easily be referred to as meditations on
the effects of time, space and light on the materiality of objects. Time is also an active ingredient in many works,
wherein the artist harnesses it to reference temporality versus impermanence. He uses fragile constructs as a
device with which to calm the mind of the viewer and to allow for pause.
Driven by quiet but palpable spiritual concerns, Balasubramaniam’s work focuses on the interconnectedness of
matter. His is a quest not just for singular epiphanies, but for a larger awakening.
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