Memory 1 Print

Pavan Kumar Machavarapu was born in 1981 in India. One of the empanelled artists of Abundant Art Gallery, Kumar is an artist and a professor of art. He investigates an individual’s place in India’s urban milieu today through his large monument paintings. One can see a complete absence of human ‘beings’ in his paintings. Even the self is absent. The only suggestion of the self is in the position he offers to the viewer where he expects them to undergo the same predicament. Though they are journeys undertaken to realize one’s own nature, they are also journeys investigating the social and public through Kumar's experiences. They are like mapping his own self through the surface of the social. The places or monuments in Kumar's works may refer to recognizable and popular sites. But he uses them only as reference signs to bring about certain experiences. The architecture and the cityscapes can also be seen as enclosures bounding the self without allowing its social interaction. In that way they are disciplinary mechanisms in play within the picture frame. Also the dark colors and layered textures try to bring about the gloomy and layered intermingling of situations and emotions. They are shown in such a way that one always sees the scene with some obstructions or screens. No scene or image is done in a clear manner. Kumar feels this is what characterizes our situation, where every information reaches us only after passing through several screens.