Today we’d like to introduce you to Leading Contemporary Artist Srinjoy Gangopadhyay.
Srinjoy, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
Born into a family of artists and growing up literally in an art studio environment I realized from a very young age that I was born to be an artist. To find my voice I traveled the world from east to west from an early age. I have worked in the design and animation industry. I have professionally worked under the tutelage of renowned contemporary, urban and pop artists including internationally famous Craig Alan.
After I graduated from SCAD Atlanta MFA program, I joined Deljou Art Group – the global leader in Fine Art Publishing. Currently, I am a Lead Artist in this company and making art in my studio at the Deljou Art Complex in West Midtown. In 2017 my work received Tulip Award as part of the best Interior Design at ‘Mansion in May’ Designer Showhouse, Alnwick Hall, New Jersey. I was nominated for the 2017 Bombay Sapphire Artisan Series Award as a regional finalist from Atlanta and exhibited in Mason Fine Art, Atlanta.
In 2018, a highly reputed industry expert nominated me for the Future Generation Art Award for excellence in Contemporary Art under 35. I recently showed my work in the renowned Gallery Mensing in Germany, and my work was featured in the New York Affordable Art Fair 2018. I have many major Art Fairs and shows lined up. My work has been shown across the US and worldwide – currently available at Deljou Art Group, Scope Fine Art, Connect contemporary, Art On the 5th, The Art Source. Merritt Gallery, Gallery Mensing.
The central overarching pursuit of my work is examining the theme of ‘Utopia’ in a contemporary context through map and model making. My influences range from Pop culture to Deep Ecology. The works at times simply holds a mirror to reflect the contemporary experience, or it can completely take the viewer to an alternative world.
The Utopian impulse explores the tension between the extreme desire to materialize the ideal and on the other hand the infinite impossibility of conceiving the perfect imagination.My work also consists of re-imagining Utopian pasts or imagining alternative realms.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
Obviously, there have been many ups and downs along the way, but it is all part of the artistic growth. One of the main challenges has been drawing from your own cultural heritage and create a contemporary language that is exciting and accessible at the same time.
While at SCAD Grad school, I was awarded a juried residency at the Elizabeth Foundation of Arts in New York. It was eye-opening to work in the diverse art industry and community in New York. I was fortunate to work as a Curatorial Assistant for the TIME:: CODE exhibition at White Box Art Center in New York. This show, curated by Raul Zamudio and Juan Puntes, featured internationally renowned artists such as Ai Wei Wei.
As I graduated from SCAD, I joined Deljou Art Group as an art studio assistant. Although the grad school equipped me with theoretical lenses and techniques. I think I learned the entrepreneurial way of the day to day business of working as a full-time studio artist after I joined this company. I painted nine to six in the studio of internationally famous Lead artists, and after hours I would work on my own painting.
I worked really hard and gradually became a lead artist which is a critical position for this company where I would have my own studio working on my own paintings. To be successful as a studio artist, you have to be very persistent and constantly creative. To be on top of the game, you have to relentlessly create without pausing. At times it can be a minimal formal exercise, or it can be a research-based conceptual process.
Constantly expanding the creative horizon, you have to experiment with new techniques and processes and incorporate the divergent elements into a successful production pipeline. Sometimes you are in the process of formulating something interesting, but you get stuck somewhere. You have to keep trying and keep asking questions, and the solutions will arrive through engagement with the art-making process.
I believe keeping yourself engaged with the process of making like a meditation is the key. I have been fortunate to get the encouragement from my parents, my wife who are also artists and certainly from Deljou Art Group to recognize my talent and give me the right opportunities to build my career as a studio artist.
Please tell us about Srinjoy Art.
I would like to discuss key ideas and processes in my works by introducing some of the recent collections. Pop and Urban Art Influence :
Pop and Urban language:
The Pop and Urban Art language in my work derive from my obsession with ‘Utopian Strategies’ in contemporary art. Building Utopian models as a critical/meditative tool are the central overarching pursuit of my practice.
In a post-pop, post-internet world overloaded with digital visual culture the ‘Pop’ is the ultimate expression of the collective Utopian subconscious. In ‘ICON’ -collection the iconic popular images of celebrated identities are adopted as the Utopian models. I have attempted to reinterpret the way these identities are generally perceived by placing them in humorously alternative story situations. In this way the works deal with the subtext of‘Identity Politics’ that is very relevant in the US and the world at these times.
The series is informed by multiple popular influences such as – internet meme culture, colorful vintage Bollywood billboards, Dada Collages and visual sampling in Street Art/Graffiti culture. The process is rooted in popular visual culture mash-up through photo manipulation altering the identity & sometimes completely flipping the framework. The post digital is next rendered in the traditional painting process.
The pictorial space is further layered with a combination of spray paint & stenciling, collage, painterly mark making, graffiti writings. The amalgamation of traditional painting and street art techniques are brought together in a fine art context to construe suggested narratives inviting the viewers to recombine fragments of popular visual culture from multiples sources on a single surface.
The images reconstructed in this process seem to reference many aspects of contemporary life in personal & socio/political contexts in a way that may be offensive, shocking or sometimes as a harmless joke.
Act of Mark Making :
Another obsession in my work has been focusing solely on the act of mark-making processes abstracting expressive, energetic and elegant outcomes that are created as residues of the process. The mark making is often informed by my interest in text-based art, language-systems, op art and graffiti writings as seen in ‘Chiaroscuro’ and ‘Writings’ collections.
Various forms of Cursive writing in today’s digital visual culture can be in a sense very enigmatic. Sometimes cursive is too difficult to decipher and then it becomes a pure abstract cryptic sign. In ‘Chiaroscuro’ and ‘Writings’ this aspect of cursive has been exaggerated and explored.
The writings should be seen as corporeal, primitive and more focused on the act of loose, nervous mark-making rather than representing any specific text. The process references a layering of time and my own memory of writing. I have used a wide range of materials, tools, and processes of mark making in these works. The expressive residue of such processes may allude to a landscape or make visible the fluid, atmospheric affect similar to musical compositions.
The utopian strategy here is to evoke the ‘Abstract Sublime’ Intended to create a strong emotional reaction and an overwhelming almost religious viewing experience. The works reinterpret methods of Romanticism as seen in the paintings of William J Turner. The Sublime and the cursive comes together in these mindscapes with the theme that language and memory is like the play of light and darkness.
Meditative Ecotopia :
In my work, I have explored Utopian themes in deep ecology and environmental contexts. My ‘Anoram’ collection invites the viewer to surrender to the infiniteness of elemental nature. Drawing from the Romanticism concept of ‘boundless energies and limitless spaces’ this collection is a passionate subjective expression of a sense of place.
The abstract panoramic vistas mostly consist of minimal rhythmic vertical parallel elements evoking the atmosphere of an infinite woodland complemented by a dense, resonating horizon line. In one hand the parallel vertical lines imbue the infinite space with a peaceful stillness, on the other hand, the reverberating horizon balances the space with fresh, energetic vibes.
The combination of these extremes captures the sublime quality of nature that is full of a sense of wonder and bliss. The reduced palette traces the luminous flow of fresh light that floods the infinite space creating a divine atmosphere celebrating the inspiring power of nature. The ‘Zephyr’ collection is a sublime interpretation of landscape with a contemporary approach intended to incite strong emotional response in the beholder.
I blend romanticism landscape tradition with post-digital visual experience through the lens of technologically mediated visual culture or how we perceive landscape through the perfection and glitches of contemporary visual technologies. Among other major collections that explore the bio-morphic theme is ‘Quintessence’, ‘Le Jardin’, ‘Ink Mountain’ among others.
Issue Based Pop Art:
I would also like to share some of my projects that were conceptualized around art-based research on specific issues.
Oasis of Dreams:
The ‘Oasis of Dreams’ project is woven with several references such as – Plantation Landscape Paintings in Deep South, Currency from Plantation Slave Economy, Company School Painting in Colonial India, Narratives from 1001 Arabian Nights, Magic (al) Realism as a postcolonial device, Visual Culture of Architectural Design & 3D Modelmaking, Currency Design and Mapmaking.
‘Oasis of Dreams’ project introduces the story of the fictional city ‘Al Waha’ and the community of construction workers based on archival research (sources such as Amnesty International) on the plight of the migrant workers in the Gulf Cities of Middle East Asia.
The project is a meditation on the construction boom with the formation of a Real-Estate bubble in specific economic zones and its ramifications. ‘Oasis of Dreams’ is a spectacle of Labor that examines the planning, construction, and consumption of ‘ghost cities’. In the ‘Oasis of Dreams’ project ‘visual spectacle of labor’is adopted as a utopian model.
The utopian strategy was intended to use ‘dramatized and glamorized spectacle of commodified labor’ as a critical tool of meditation on the ‘flows of labor’ in the global chain and its’ ramifications that cause ‘alienations of culture and individual lives’.
The economic subject of globalization deals with the temporary or permanent migrations of people in pursuit of diverse kinds of work in zones of rapid development, as well as the immaterial labor generated and carried through electronic and digital means. The representation of ‘Labor’ as the central motif in the project, exploited the exploitation in order to map and also complicate the ‘specificities of labor in globalization.’
Wishing Well:
‘Wishing Well’ project is a meditation on the ‘Politics of Water’, ‘Water Wars in Developing Economies’ and the larger environmental issues of ‘Climate Change’ as well as issues of ‘Globalization’. The installation consists of Corrugated cardboard boxes with ‘Coca-Cola’ logo screen printed in world languages resembling vintage Coca-Cola packaging forming an allusion to a village well in combination with the wooden structure and aluminum hardware.
Inside the well, there is a projection playing out myself dressed as an oriental magician performing the ‘ Water of India’ magic trick. Popular in the sub-continent the ‘Water of India’ magic trick can also represent a utopian model that in turn references the issues of water shortage & climate change in the sub-continent as in the trick the magician flaunts a magical container that is emptied repeatedly but the water fills up infinitely.
The site of installation is Atlanta just a few blocks away from the global headquarter of Coca-Cola also adds to the significance of the piece. The viewer participation through peeping into the piece and occasionally throwing a dime adds to the interactive aspect of the work hence the title. The installation has a double-edged effect as many viewers perceive it as a celebration of the ‘Coca-Cola’ branding & it’s global reach as well as the concept of beverage and happiness.
However, the piece also references the deeper issues of the geopolitics of water and economic globalization & its effects on communities.
How to make invisible garments:
‘How to make invisible garments’ was a project created during my residency at the Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts, New York. In ‘How to make Invisible garments’ I attempted to build ‘Utopian’ models in the context of displacement of the working class due to socio-economic forces. I appropriated vintage British illustrated cutting guides in the paintings, to make utopian instructional diagrams for garment making. The pattern cutting and sewing guides allude to the process and physical labor behind the garment construction.
The measurement and shapes of the parts are cartographic in nature as they reference a fragmented mapping of the body. The visual culture of consumer garment advertising is also manipulated through the works. The popular advertising of garment brands features fashion models sporting the marketed garments, in order to heighten these objects as the most desirable. Through sensual posturing and implied narratives of desire, the attention of the consumers are grabbed. I used the figures as cartographic elements in the work. The typographic fragments of the advertising visuals have been abstracted.
‘Nakshi Katha’ is a traditional textile made by working class rural communities in Bangladesh and India from used garments. The decorative elements and motifs in these textiles represent scenes of prosperity. The tales of love and nature – in a sense a map of a utopian world full of prosperity and happiness. My use of design elements from this traditional textile heightens the tension, in contrast to the modern advertising imagery. Materials collected from the New York garment district are directly used in the mixed media works.
I purchased Fabrics produced in the garment district, from some of the remaining stores that are still struggling to fuel the dying garment manufacturing system. The materiality of the fabrics directly refers to a production process that links the present with the glorious past as components of the garment construction process in New York. In the pictorial space, these fabrics have been used as cartographic elements alluding to geographic markers such as dots, grids, and lines. The allegorical narrative of ‘the king and the invisible garment’ has been recontextualized with the intentionally complex global garment trade.
As discussed, my body of work is very dynamic and often pursue diverse ideas and processes. However, this has been beneficial for me as my different projects complement & inform each other as well. Working on multiple projects simultaneously helps as whenever I get stuck in one area, I can draw from the other strategies. Formal and art historical elements from South-Asian and Ethnic sources come in my language naturally.
My works at times simply holds a mirror to reflect the contemporary experience, re-imagines Utopian pasts or it can completely take the viewer to an alternative world. The Utopian impulse explores the tension between the extreme desire to materialize the ideal and on the other hand the infinite impossibility of conceiving the perfect imagination.
What is “success” or “successful” for you?
A very successful painter in his own right and my earliest art inspiration – my father never imposed any formulaic training and rather allowed me to keep exploring and finding my own voice. I think for me it has been beneficial to learn things through trial and error as it allows one to be more persistent and self-conscious.
As painters, we spend hundreds of hours alone with the materials in the studio. However humble the beginning of something, it is crucial to be persistent and keep working consistently, enjoying the process along the way, until you work reaches where it needs to be.
The internet and digital image making technologies have completely changed the production and dissemination of art objects. Embracing the new technology and recombining with traditional processes has been the key. Being in the right place at the right time definitely helps.
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Contact Info:
- Address: 1616 Huber St NW, Atlanta, GA 30318
- Website: www.deljouartgroup.com
- Phone: (404) 350-7190
- Email: info@deljouartgroup.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/srinjoyart/?hl=en
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