Suhas Bhujbal
Gallery Affiliations: Dolby Chadwick Gallery, Sue Greenwood Fine Art
Region: Pacific Coast
Working in oils, I create compositions of colorful, overlapping forms and marks to describe various architectural facades. Despite the geometric quality of even the most abstracted of my cityscapes, intersecting planes and strong shadows nevertheless convey three-dimensionality and depth, while expressive, often energetic mark-making augments their emotional complexity. For me, architecture provides a tangible scaffolding around which to construct a specific mood or narrative. Many paintings from A Quiet Town series, for example, depict the effects of modernization and population growth on Indian cities. These congested horizons are much different from those of US cities, where urban planning codes have regulated construction and preserved open spaces. In India, on the other hand, buildings seem to sit on top of or melt into each other, creating a disjointed gestalt further fractured by the practice of re-coating selected parts of buildings with vibrant layers of paint. The juxtaposition of old buildings and flashy new architecture and the whirlwind of commercial signboards, banners and colorful stalls where merchants sell saries and spices provide the inspirational springboard for my compositions, which create harmony out of chaos and conflict.