Sameer Kulavoor b. 1983

Sameer Kulavoor has experimented with reverse painting with acrylic and oil markers on glass sheets for the first time in the series Retrofits, Outside the Gated Community, and Dense City - a reminder of the ubiquitous glass sheet cladding, enveloping several new structures. The works point to the transformation of these structures from opaque mirrors of their surroundings during the day to transparent windows at night.

"In Outside the Gated Community (2021), Retrofits (2022), and Tech Park (2021)—a series that occupied a wall and a half of the gallery’s modest but well-used space—Kulavoor compresses a sense of time and change into layered yet effectively two-dimensional works. The backmost layer of each of these pieces comprises a sheet of paper painted with acrylic or gouache. In Outside the Gated Community 1–9, the monochrome paintings each depict Indians of varying social classes as implied by their dress; in Retrofits 1–7, similarly muted applications show laborers at work, sometimes backgrounded by the bamboo scaffolding ubiquitous among Indian construction projects; and in Tech-Park 1–6, these back layers are painted simply in single, dull hues reminiscent of the dirt and dust of post-demolition, pre-construction spaces." Ned Carter Miles (2023, 3 July), Sameer Kulavoor: Edifice Complex, Art Asia Pacific