Deciphering Sunil Gawde’s art practice

A proficient art practitioner, Sunil Gawde, blends his artistic sensibility and immense creativity with highly refined fine design & craft skills. His set of tools often includes an array of sophisticated paint materials and peculiar implements, such as trowels, scrapers etc that together attain a layered depth and feel in his pigments.

This also leads to textured surfaces that appear both dynamic and dramatic. Often metaphysical and metaphorical, Sunil gawde’s creations deftly take shape, as he expertly mutates complex philosophy with ubiquitous objects from day-to-day life to which he gives a new interpretation.

A painter, sculptor, and installation artist, all rolled in one, his philosophy has always been not to lose his originality, always staying true to his inner voice and never resorting to short cuts. Known to be a perseverant innovator, he has steadily moved away from his earlier minimalist, 2-dimensional creations to large-scale, more ambitious and thought-provoking sculptures and dynamic multi-media installations.

Summing up his work and processes, he has stated, "I try and build up a rhythm; it's a physical thing. Intellect and planning only go so far. When I paint, something is hammering in here. At times, I like to go to extremes: to the edge. I know there are no short cuts. Each picture has to have its own sincerity."

Among his other selected solos are 'Alliteration', Sakshi Gallery, Mumbai (2010); '8 Seconds Ahead of Time, Sakshi Gallery, Bangalore (2002); '1mm', Sakshi, Mumbai (2001); and 'Oblique', a traveling show in Mumbai, Chennai, Baroda, and New Delhi (1998); shows at Prithvi Art Gallery, Mumbai, ABC Art Gallery, Varanasi (1995); Chitrakoot Art Gallery, Kolkata (1994), Cymroza Art Gallery, Mumbai along with Jindal Art Foundation (1993), and  Jehangir Art Gallery, Mumbai (1990).

Regarding  his ‘Alliteration’, Jitish Kallat has mentioned: “It’s an advanced variation of a similar piece from his sculptural series ‘Blind Bulb etc.’ (2005). I have a distinct memory of standing before it even as the interplaying black-and-white lunar forms moved at different speeds evoking a mechanical montage of an anomalous sky. While viewing his work-in-progress two artists from very diverse cultural backgrounds and generations came to my mind; Nam June Paik  and Darren Almond. While their widely differing practices have very little formal or mediumistic affinity with his, a fleeting reference on particular works by these artists might aid the viewing of the series.”