Known for his kaleidoscopic mural-scale works Sandeep Mukherjee’s solo exhibition at the Broad Center Pitzer Art Gallery represent a departure for the artist. The coloration has disappeared from the work and in its stead Mukherjee conjures up a dark Wagnerian landscape full of reference to both the natural and the unnatural world. Serene and hypnotic, this exhibition is appropriately named Spell.
The show consists of three horizontal works on vellum that hang unframed on the wall. The artist seems to be parsing out everything that is unnecessary in order to make a direct statement. Taken down to its elements Mukherjee has restricted his images to primarily three elements; the radiating space in the background, a horizontal thrust of a large mark that vaguely represents the ground and a limited palette of black and white. The overall effect is a meditation about human endurance and bravado much like the sumi-e brush work he seems to be referencing in his choice of materials.
These works are large scale and ambitious in their execution. Thousand of repetitive marks burst from the center creating a spatial vortex that spins like a time-lapse photograph of outer space that is colliding with the blackened ground. The delicate complexity of these marks result in a shimmery surface that seems to change as you move along the pieces like a vinyl record tilted to catch the sunlight.
What makes these pieces synthesize so well is the balance between the artists labor and his willingness to take risks. His brush work dramatically slashes the bottom of the pieces with a massive matte black that almost completely obliterates the delicacy of his exhaustive handwork. It is this gesture that takes this work to a higher level and pushes it into a contemporary context. Spell consists of two very different cultural traditions meditating on the concept of transcendence through mark making. These pieces reference both the asian and the western cultural traditions of the perfect forceful black sweep.
Overall Spell is a fusion of sensibilities and pared down haptic marks that together create a labyrinth of meaning for the viewer. I think it is too easy to read this work as either non representational abstraction or vaguely figural abstraction. Rather the paintings subvert both abstract traditions by calling to mind universal concepts that predate both.
