concept note
2014
Residency programme: Sandarbh International Residency, Partpur, Banswada, Rajasthan, India
Our journey from birth to mortality is a journey of our dreams… dreams of today for dreams of tomorrow.
Mukesh Sharma a painter, a printmaker, and also working in new media, portray a contemporary dilemma of globalization in his work Sapnein. Mukesh who comes from from a rural Indian setting, having travelled in ascending urbanization, observes the constant urge to modernize lives and stay to the roots. His works over the years are observations of the technological advancement parallel to denouncement of ecology.
As he witness the typical rural in Partapur at Sandarbah, he observes the fetish to lavish western lifestyle in the people, and yet resentment to relieve themselves of their existing culture. In his work Spanien (dreams), he weaves the khat, bed used of their traditionally in India, which a red satin band (otherwise woven with jute or rope). The red here represents the fetishized dreams. the need to show that people have now globalized but yet cannot leave their comfort zones. The concept dervies of annotations from the very lavish modernised constructions with bright hues emerging in the vicinity, yet having old setting like niches filled with objects not so in sync. His conversation with residentes elightens their ignorance in improvising to urbane, yet their lure to the same.
The khat is a bit disoriented with use, and is engulfed with a snake of hay, obtained from local markets and homes. The handling of materials like dry grass is remarkable, and is a characteristic of the artist to adapt and create aesthetically appropriate even beautiful visuals.
The snake has multiple mouths and fangs representing the multiple endowments in term of supermarket products, technologies like cell phones and number of other eltherronic. His latest work have been comments of the e-waste that their hazards, and the malfunctioning of the recycling industry in our country.
In number of current works, Mukesh coil reptiles made out of keyboards, cell phone bodies, computer parts and locally available synthetic material collected from various waste-collecting outlets in respective areas; presently to the khat of individual roots and dreams.
Mukesh experience and travels his roots firmer on ground. His thus questing the fecundity of pleasures; wether pleasures are perceptions or conceptions make an interesting statement (even more so as a residencies like these attempt to bridge these varsities. pertaining to the lineage, the snake in Sapnein crawls over the traditions and fetish dreams together, itself.