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Artist Statement for Sridhar Ramasami
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An engineer by education and trade who started painting seriously after being overwhelmed with the emptiness and sterility of the modern world. Most of the change occurred during a 10 month, 4700 mile hike of the Eastern Continental Trail. The physical and mental hardships during the journey were fodder for some serious soul searching. What started as an adventure became a major turning point . It resulted in a drastic change in life style and philosophy - a rejection of the materialistic, nihilistic modern culture to a simpler, more conscious life with an optimistic philosophical stance.
The painting philosophy includes:
* Beauty in simplicity - More emphasis on the basic shapes of objects than the details. Thus a human body is simplified to perhaps a triangle and a circle. The design of characters and the composition are kept simple.
* Non-realism - A painting is not reality. It is the map not the terrain. It is a combination of color that exposes internal and external truths. And because its not reality a realistic style of painting is not followed.
* Color - This is perhaps the biggest difference between other contemporary paintings and those found here. While most contemporary paintings use gray and a limited color range the paintings here burst with color. Color represents vitality and life. It represents optimism and a belief in life.
* Story telling - The paintings tell a story in all three spheres of perception - conscious, sub-conscious and unconscious. All the paintings are scenes from a story. They are not linear. They do not conform to a time or culture. The story is a work in progress and will remain so. It is loosely structured to allow the viewer her own interpretations. Only the deeper truth is revealed, the more superficial ones are left to the viewer.
* Independence from bias - This is extremely difficult but an attempt has been made in the form of cultural and time neutrality. I have lived in three very different cultures - Indian, US and Chinese. The influence of all three can be seen in the paintings. Also the past and future is melded together in the painting.
* Technically, a new personal style had to be found to be true to the feeling. The search was a long, some times frustrating process, but the end result and satisfaction is well worth it. The sketching consists of drawing basic shapes by the hundreds. Creation of characters is secondary and the basic shapes are modified as less as possible to do so. The color application is broken and fuzzy. Two backgrounds (the nearer one bright and the further one light) are used to break the painting from the surroundings.
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