GLASGOW.- Sullivan+Strumpf shared that a major new exhibition from Ramesh Mario Nithiyendran, Idols of Mud and Water, was opened on Friday evening, November 24, 2023, at Scotland’s leading and largest international contemporary art space, Tramway, Glasgow, continuing until April 21, 2024.
Ramesh Mario Nithiyendran’s most significant international commission to date, and his first institutional solo exhibition in the UK and Europe, Idols of Mud and Water re-imagines Tramway’s pre-eminent 1,200 sqm T2 gallery into an immersive theatrical environment populated with hundreds of his unique multi-limbed fertility, guardian, protector, joker, and warrior figures.
Representative of Hindu gods, whose avatars manifest in colourful, hybrid, human-animal forms, the artist’s anti-monuments vary dramatically in scale and materiality, from a terracotta army of 97 smaller sculptures nestled within an improvised, makeshift architectural ‘temple’ structure, to larger scale bronze and ceramic pieces, and an omnipresent multi-limbed guardian figure made from cob (mud and straw) that extends to the rafters of the ceiling.
Smoke, water, mud, and light present as characters in their own right, bringing a kinetic pulse to the narrative and evoking the feeling that visitors are entering a ruin or a space of dreams and divinations, simultaneously apocalyptic and optimistic. In Idols of Mud and Water Tramway becomes, in the artist’s words, a ‘buzzing mythological playground’ in which queer politics, anthropomorphism, monumentality and popular culture combine to create new, speculative mythologies.
Speaking in Glasgow on Friday, Nithiyendran commented that, “the exhibition is not only my largest installation to date, but also the most technically and conceptually ambitious. Synthesising water and movement into my sculptural work has been brewing for some time and feels particularly exciting and urgent. It's also exciting to position my work in the context of the UK and particularly, Glasgow. The installation was made between Sydney and Scotland and has inspired new thinking when it comes to my considerations of regionally specific narratives."
More than six months in the making, Nithiyendran’s monumental body is underscored by an expansive narrative around elemental forces. From the symbolic cultural and mythological meanings ascribed to floods and natural disasters, to global debates on the impacts of climate change, and the growing fluidity across genders, races, belief systems and even species, that underpins the artist’s vision.
Idols of Mud and Water has been commissioned by Tramway and is supported by Creative Australia, Creative Scotland, and the Henry Moore Institute.
Back home in Australia, Sullivan+Strumpf look forward to presenting Nithiyendran’s latest works at Melbourne Art Fair in February 2024, and in a major solo exhibition at their Sydney gallery in July 2024.
The Gallery will also present a fresh series of Nithiyendran’s sculptures at Art Basel Hong Kong in March 2024.
