Intriguing installations done in multiple mediums and materials

For almost a decade (1993-2001), artist Susanta Mandal dealt with structural constructions in a captivating combination of canvas and wood, to deduce different forms and a new visual language.

The fascinating forms were inspired by the ancient weaving looms customized by him to produce spun ‘yarns’, which drew from history, politics and lingering human pain.

In his earlier explorations, he had also used light as an inherent element instead, drawing on a more conventional engagement with the medium instead of on gallery produced fixtures.  An intriguing installation by him employed solar panels outside the exhibiting space to fuel the release of bubbles that constantly morphed as they emerged.

They incorporated another movement in the way of heaps of moving bubbles or dying bubbles to create a fragile structure, lasting only for a few seconds and bursting one by one. At a casual glance, the playful performance was fun, but the apparent playfulness in the structure culminated in an unstated and enduring pain.

In an interplay of structured, static forms with the ephemeral and fragile – for instance, bubbles, he juxtaposed his experiences of living off an electrical grid with that of his earlier generations who hardly had electricity, historicizing the contingency of this electrical divide and of state infrastructure as well as social (dis)order.

In a recent series, entitled ‘How Long does it take to Complete a Circle?’ at Bangalore-based GallerySKE, he used signals of light, threads etc to emphasize the visual flow of electricity. Another body of work, which took a cue from the knowledge and impending fear of an escalating scarcity of resources, included lenses that enlarged the clarity of candlelight akin to a magic lantern and projected minute details from the architecture, as if hallucinating with ghostly and eerie images.

He continues to experiment with unconventional structural constructions that look to subvert ways of seeing, and simultaneously perplex viewers.