Artist in Residence Om Soorya's work at Kunst Halle

Indian artist Om Soorya, currently in Switzerland on the artist in residence programme, exhibits his recent work at Kunst Halle, St. Gallen.

Kunst Halle St Gallen is pleased to present 
the work of the Indian artist Om Soorya in the lobby of the Kunst Halle St. Gallen. 

Within the artist in residence program of Pro Helvetia, Om Soorya spent the last two months in St. Gallen. Om Soorya’s series of watercolours, «Silence-Breathless», which deals with the slavery in his country and its impact on today’s India, will be exhibited until 31 May.
Presentation of work and bar: Wednesday, 6 May 2009, 6 – 8 p.m.
The artist will be present.

Om Soorya’s work (*1977, India) is concerned with the history of India and especially the urbanisation of the country. The artist interweaves these topics with his own past, creating dreamlike images. His latest exhibitions took place in Shanghai (2009), New Delhi, Mumbai (2008) and New York (2007).

Breathless silence; the forgotten folk lines…
Om Soorya, a young emerging artist from India, will be in Kunst Halle until 30 May 2009. A Kerela born artist, who now lives and works in Hyderabad, Om’s works are surreal dream-like landscapes that question what is real and what is perceived.

Born in 1977, the Kerala based artist’s works underline the fact that aesthetics are as important to him as content. Om Soorya is known for his surreal landscapes occupied by both positive and negative energies that he depicts in many fascinating forms. The artist’s usage of pigment is intuitive, albeit fluid. His rich tones coupled with lines varying from watery blurs seem much like a twilight zone.

"The project I am engaged with here is a kind of extension of works what I have been doing for a while. Inherently, this body of work will look to the certain rural aspects of my life. It’s a small autobiographical unwritten history of a certain locality where I was spent my childhood in north of Kerala/India.   It is in a miniature format, and the medium is water color on paper. Over here I travel through my past to locate myself, to reach to my route as an artist as well to search the serenity of the past where I was very close to the nature. When I look back to my childhood, I see a lot of visual possibilities. It’s not just nostalgic exercise, but I evolve myself to seek out the contradiction between my present urban life and the local memoir.

It is a combination of personal history, stories; folk elements and socio-political-cultural history of a particular time of a locality. It may be a very illustrative fictional way of representing intimate history.  For me there is no other way of beholding it. Ultimately, it shares an idea of local perceptiveness with the global perception. ( two images from this series are attached)"

Om Soorya - 2009 / St. Gallen, Switzerland
Image 1: A thin red line rooted in the history…., water color on paper, 32x24cm, 2009
Image 2: The men; they all took bath together in the same canal, water color on paper, 32x24cm,2009