Arvind Sundar

“Almost all creativity involves purposeful play.”
– Abraham Maslow

Arvind’s body of work addresses the formalist relationships and problems involved in the construction of painting and sculpture. His work primarily revolves around the idea of play.

He plays with the concepts relating to geometry, grid and mathematics. The play results in compositions reflecting the spiritual and physical connectedness to mathematical/ geometrical systems. His primary focus, geometry and mathematics serve as the inauguration point for his work. This play gives him an agency towards the rigid and complex systems. For him play is not just about having fun but about taking risks, experimenting, and testing boundaries.

Apollonian Gasket
Apollonian Gasket provides a composition exercise which results in a fractal. It is packing of circles in a space created between circles.
For the artist the fractal property of the apollonian gasket represents the similarity of macrocosm and microcosm.
This series of collages are different iterations where new geometries emerge out of the self similarity. It is a parallel to put human psyche which is in similar to the collective consciousness but still emerge out with multitude feelings of wonder and revolution.

Chaos Geometry
Chaos theory is a branch of mathematics focused on underlying patterns that are highly sensitive to initial conditions. These collages are a series of stripes following a specific angular rotation to form a specific polygonal form. Since the angular rotation is eyeballed to approximation rather than measured to perfection the final polygonal form is distorted. The margin of error gets accumulated and it could be seen in the final polygonal form.
Chaos in geometry is a common sighting in an urban situation. Then we could see corners of buildings being truncated and streets being misaligned from the planned grid. These are viewable human traces in infallible geometry.

Geometry of Chance
Circumstances and chances play an undeniable role in human condition. Our lives throws circumstances at us everyday and we compose them in a certain way.
What is randomness? This painting is composed using Brass dices which are popularly called “Dhayakattai” in Tamil. Dhayakattai is a popular game in Tamil Culture. Usually dices are cubical and marked in six sides but these ones are long cuboids marked on 4 sides. I rolled these dices one after the other and arranged them like how they fall. The composition shows the randomness involved in an absolute confined geometry.

Tantric Geometry
This series of shaped canvas paintings is focused on ancient Indian idea of Tantra. The word tantric means “woven together”. In our perception all the objects that we encounter are different geometric solids woven together to show us as whole. In this series I am creating combinations with different geometries to make a whole new geometry. Tantra is seen as the combination of physical and spiritual. Here the spiritual element is the colour. Colour is something deeply perceived by every individual in a different manner. The overlapping of different canvases provides a physical distinction between the spaces and the colour creates the illusion of negative spaces.

System Series
These drawings are systems created using lines and forms. The collaged cut paper acts as pockets of colour fields providing contrast. The lines act as a conduit that connects those small pockets. Circuit boards and maps were the primary inspirations for these drawings.

Arvind Sundar (1993, Coimbatore) completed his Masters in Painting and drawing (MFA) from University of Cincinnati, USA (2018). He attained a Prior Degree course at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, USA (2016). He is the recipient of the Wolstein travel fellowship for the year 2017.
His work primarily revolves around the idea of play. He plays with the concepts related to geometry, grid and mathematics. His play results in compositions reflecting the spiritual and physical connectedness to mathematical/geometrical systems. Right now, he practices art from his hometown of Coimbatore.