About.

Artist Statement

The passion to experiment with various materials and mediums and turn them into forms and figures is what drives me to create artworks. Transforming these forms into large-scale works gives me immense satisfaction and pleasure.
I believe that having a never-ending craving for Drawing & Sketching and putting all the ideas and concepts onto paper physically, is essential to evaluate our journey and transition as an artist I have been fortunate to have my work of about 35 years documented. This is what helped me grow as an artist and it eventually transitioned into various opportunities to make sculptures and public art installations of monumental scale.
The fact that public art is for every common man to observe enjoy and cherish is something that spurs me to create art. This is the art that can be enjoyed by everyone, no caste, creed, or age is the bar, and that gives me the strength and drive to chase another challenge and create my next artwork.
When I was growing up in the city of Ahmedabad, I used to represent my school in drawing competitions and got many awards and achievements throughout. So for me to join an art college was inevitable. I was blessed to gain knowledge of art from the Faculty of Fine Arts at Baroda. During my art education, I was always inclined toward nature as the source of my inspiration for my work. My art is about what I have seen, observed, and felt and then transformed it a personal perception of Visual Art. After having finished my studies, I was selected for an on-campus interview with a company in Dubai. During my stay in Dubai, my work led me to explore many avenues such as Photography and 3 Dimensional works in varied materials and mediums. However by the time my commitment of 3 years was over, I had already decided that I would be happiest living in my country and working for India.

Since my return to India in 1995, I have been working as an artist doing various works such as Sculptures, Murals, Paintings, Drawings, ceramics, and Pottery. I feel privileged to have got the opportunity to work with freedom and I was fortunate that throughout I kept getting more work and continued creating art which kept me going as an Artist Apart from all the materials that I have worked with, I was always very inclined towards MS scrap metal as a material which complemented the form I conceptually perceived. When SMC invited me to work and to make some sculptures, Scrap Metal as medium, was the mutually agreed upon as the soul of art works and installations.
“The discarded becomes the displayed material” was the concept which led to the scrap metal being transformed into an artwork to be cherished by a normal common man on the streets and not limiting it only to the art connoisseurs and art literates.
Beyond every artwork, lies originality and the freshness of the concept. For me, that has always been rooted in Indian art. Indian art has always influenced me, though having studied various languages of art, my personal language of expression is derived from Indian
art and nature.
My beautiful city Surat, which is already green, clean, and beautiful due to the efforts of the civic body, is the Surat Municipal Corporation. We felt we could only contribute to this with scrap metal artworks as the sustainable keystone on top of the existing infra-structural pyramid. I have felt honored to be a part of this aesthetic development of Surat. There are already
60 sculptures having sizes from more than 10 feet to 38 feet in height are adorned across Surat city. This is an enormous collection for any single city in India.
I would like to continue creating art, which can provide visual relief to any common man. I believe art is something that is not bound by any parameters drawn by society and I wish my journey as an artist brings joy to me as well as many other people of my country and beyond, my prayers shall always be that I can keep working for Gujarat and India.

– Sunil Sridhar