Every city, its streets and blocks, buildings, houses and landscapes were all completely abstract during the process of their construction. It was 2004 and after, I was living in a place that I love called Goa. A prosperous state in India known for its beautiful beaches, landscapes and hospitality was all of a sudden filled with host of construction and building activity. It pained me to see unplanned, thoughtless concrete jungles were being erected in the name of development and changing the look of naturally rich beautiful place into yet another ecologically imbalanced place. However, I accepted it and adapted to it, just like most people of Goa.
But I knew, one day, the artist in me will catch and express the abstract scenes of destruction of old and construction of new. In the process I started realizing a new series of work called Construction – Deconstruction. It started taking its shape in 2008. And I feel have not yet completed it.
In any case, I draw my inspiration from things and daily scenes of life. In this series I tried representing my view of these buildings in a finished/half-finished state through aerial maps of the sites. These abstract representations have more linear defined forms that are solidly attached in some places and seem to drift away in others. It takes time and effort to achieve a full state of being, a complete state of construction. We are, after all, like a building site, a work in progress, trying to take shape.
I shall keep you posted whenever I come up with next phase of this series.
(Copyright 2021, Deviprasad C Rao. Author is an Artist, Curator, Writer & Artist Facilitator. Founder of Devamitra Artists Collective based in Zurich, Switzerland. He can be reached through this website www.deviprasad.com)