Artist Profile :: Justin Ponmany

21 January 2009

In partnership with Gallery Nature Morte, one of India’s premiere contemporary art spaces since 1997, Phillips de Pury & Company presents The Audience and the Eavesdropper: New Art from India & Pakistan, featuring 10 of the most influential and soughtafter artists working in India and Pakistan. The exhibition opens in London on 26 November 2008 and in New York on 28 January 2009.

Through 15 December 2008:
Phillips de Pury & Company
Howick Place London SW1P 1BB

From 28 January - 14 February 2009:
Phillips de Pury & Company
450 West 15 Street New York NY

Justin Ponmany utilizes unconventional media in his canvases, often distressing their surfaces to create his gritty portraits of life in India. Finding his subject matter in the detritus, gutters and alleyways of Mumbai, Ponmany explores the brutality of living in a country defined by class distinctions and the brute Darwinian quality of life which is born as a result. Using photographs as a basis for his works, the artist imbues his surfaces with plastic, resin, printer’s ink, salt and holograms to create his rugged stylistic effects. The slick holographic media which coats the canvas is purposely sanded and worn away revealing holes and decay in the high-tech façade, much like the urban landscape of India, scarred by monsoons, pollution and over-crowding.

Justin Ponmany, Pledge 02, 2008

In his newest works, Ponmany explores the relationship between the viewer and the subjects in his paintings, structuring the compositions to create conscious dialogues between the figures inside the pictures and those outside of it. In this way the work becomes interactive, often creating the sensation that the viewer is being followed or watched by the picture itself.

In his photographic works, Ponmany digitally combines three views of his subjects captured at different angles and weaves these various perspectives together to create a disconcerting panoramic view of his subject. The creases and wrinkles of the figures adopt the characteristics of land masses as they undulate across the page. The various views both suggest Picasso’s Cubism, in its attempt to capture a figure in its spatial entirety, but also a futuristic version of a police mug shot. The artist is interested in the affect of the internet on both personal and geographical borders; in these corporeal landscapes he finds a visual medium in which to explore both simultaneously.

Justin Ponmany lives and works in Mumbai, India. For sale enquiries and more information about the artist please contact Veronica Collins, vcollins@phillipsdepury.com