Well recognised and applauded, Jammu born sculptor Ravinder Jamwal is an installation artist in the true spirit of Installation art, in his rejection of the more formalist and market oriented paradigms of art that depend on durability and artist’s signature.
In his early years, as a Masters level student at MSU Baroda, encouraged into portrait sculpture, Jamwal has, and continues to make heads in different materials. His first loves, however, remain nature, environment, philosophy and science, going back to his BFA days in his home state of Jammu.
Nature is uncertain and complex. Despite this, however, it has its own undying rhythm and order, simple rules followedover eons, sustaining the cycle of birth and destruction. Nature’s creations are inherently impermanent, sharing the rhythmic rule of limitations at every level, be it knowledge, capacity, capability, life, growth or relationships. This is the guiding principle for the present series.
In recent years, Jamwal has put his heart into open air installations with an eye to nature, more often than not with recycled matter, also his metaphor through the series. His current six works on display follow a long line of such works, unhindered by considerations of fragility or transience of material,spontaneouslyin keeping with the mood of installations,primarily as a tool for transfer of ideas.
Juxtaposed on his ideas of renewal and regeneration of matter through melting, churning or simple wear and tear, is the ancient Hindu belief of birth and re-birth from one life to another, transformation andreincarnation. Retaining residual matter embedded in freshly cast metal suggest perhapsevolution and change as fallouts of existence.
Using metal like iron and steel, wood, the crucible, newspaper, glue and paint, Jamwal gives form to his belief that nothing and no one is infiniteor unlimited in reach. To this end he works with passion and an intensity issuing from the plethora of ideas playing in his head. Often has he created works, say, on a seashore, dividing space with thin wooden branches to make a fence cutting the shoreline. Villagers removing the wood post haste left the artist unruffled. “An idea expressed is my intent. I don’t mind the material dissipating!”
Mankind only understands a small fraction of the mysteries of Creation. The leitmotif of frames underpin Jamwal’s idea of boundaries :limitations. Metaphorically speaking, all things after their due lifespan get sucked into the vortex of a black hole, and pour out renewed from the other end. “Likewise for the material I use in my works.”
Brutality, in iron and wood, with sharp spikes jutting out to hurt represent the enormous, dangerous aspects of nature, menacing and destructive. Furnace, in iron and crucible recalls renewal and metamorphosed matter. In Observation the tall structure overseeing the on goings below. Under Limitation and Recycling are self evident, while Prosperity in iron and wood represents the gradual rise to success one step at a time, the series of glossy frames signifying obstacles even as the shiny giant chrome marbles lure perseverance.
A genuine artist, rare to come by in times that have made a god of the market.
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