Arteles Catalogue 2023-2020

Fall into Focus program / NOVEMBER 2023
Sheetal Sivaramakrishnan
India
www.sheetal-s.com
About
My work is rooted in my poetry which explores the evolution
and intricacies of human relationships within the urban
landscape. Poetry allows me to explore a metaphorical realm
where materiality and textures come together to inhabit the
experiential.
I am interested in exploring how humans collectively respond
to various socio-political, technological and emotional
incidents that occur around them. These responses contain
a multitude of narratives that are emotionally charged
landscapes. Poetry has the ability to hold space for
physicality with honesty and composure.
Guided by text, that is sometimes evidenced in my artwork,
I have been able to transcribe emotions with materiality that
is resilient and minimal. My work seeks to create an intimate
space that posits the now, and the future by first unifying
the language, then ex- tending it with tangibility to reflect a
shared truth.
Reading, Research &
conceptualising my solo show.
I arrived in Arteles in the cold white November of 2023. All the
snow around, echoed deeply with the material (porcelain) I
was learning to work with back home in India.
My purpose for this residency was to find a calm balance
to conceptualise my first solo show. Surrounded by the
abundant whiteness, it was easier to observe the interplay
of light and other objects against stark whiteness. The visual
resonance of white as a colour, as a material has always been
a matter of deep curiosity for me. And from experience how
porcelain, from its yielding softness; it assures one's own
thought into an outcome.
Daily walking around in the snow was a ritual against odds
with layers to collect images of specific natural arrangements
that I later abstracted into drawings.
These images provided me with the necessary education of
shapes and forms that I will cast in brass and porcelain. Along
with the title of my solo show to the number of artworks, I
take home with me, the lightness of silence and a renewed
belief in pursuit as an artist.
The daily meditation helped me carve a spiritual connection
with feelings and forms I wanted to create, appearing
naturally whilst bringing a sort of kindness towards myself,
which I had missed while making art in the city. I also take
back learnings from the company of so many tender and
creative beings who shared the space with deep respect and
kindness.