Artistic motifs and motivations of Susanta Mandal

Trained as a painter, the multi-faceted and innovative practitioner has always shown a propensity to work with diverse materials and forms, manifesting themselves in mechanized sculptural installations. Here’s a quick look at motifs and motivations of artist Susanta Mandal:

• Employing materials like steel and glass, Susanta Mandal constructs structures that present a vibrant visual representation of the invisible energies, running through pipelines that serve as latent backbone of any construction. Outwardly not seen and yet integral, they generate inside the solid building space multiple pockets of tunnels through which various ‘soft’ elements (both virtually and physically) move.
• The oft-provoking motif here for the artist is: ‘How long will they run?’; the underlying idea being to expose them and almost lay them bare. The glass pipes enable ‘the transparency of observation’ - for ‘the unseen to be seen’ - further reinforced by those imagined, perceptible depictions of the visual flows of energy.
• These structures, either wall- mounted or carrying a photo of an actual building in some cases, implanted with the implied knowledge that the whole will finally be put up in an unknown place, emerge as an alien part in the existing familiar body of architecture. Keen to experiment, he has tried his hands at three-dimensional pieces, blending painted surfaces and weaving looms for sculptural, wall-based works.
• Light and narrative have become increasingly integral to his practice, alluding to a peculiar storytelling tradition revolving around shadow-play, symbolizing abstract fear – that of life or of social change - in his works.
• Elaborating on his artistic processes, he has stated, “I often use lights and movements of shadows which create numerous forms on the screen/walls, describing feelings of individuals, albeit more universal in a narrative manner- featured continuously to project repetitiveness through which pain/ drowsiness/ monotony together dragged on.
• “I gradually started using photographs and videos along with other moving objects through motors. I started working with motors to get ‘motions’-for which there are no substitutes – especially a physical movement - human or mechanical - which is important to me. One thing being articulated in my work is the amalgamation of two types of motions; virtual movement (through video) and physical movement (from mechanical devices),” he reveals.