Visakh Menon creates art as a way to challenge himself
Recent drawings and paintings by Visakh Menon* are currently on display at two galleries: BluePrint12 in New Delhi and 1x1 in Dubai.
Tremors. Ink on Rice paper. Detail. 2019.
Menon’s images are visually similar to the intricate structures seen in diagrammatic representations of electronic systems, social networks, botnets, neural circuits and genome maps. In this manner, he seeks to show how the interaction between humans and machines impact human perception.
The New York based artist’s focus is on the visual language of technical glitches, human error and noise. What happens when the expected process starts to dysfunction?: Hardware errors in graphic cards, ROM corruption in games, broken LCD displays and JPG artefacts. “They often lead to unexpected visuals that cannot be planned or controlled,” he says.
“My glitch art functions as a veneration of the broken or damaged,” says Menon. In this way, it generates a very different aesthetic, the aesthetics of failure, than that typically seen in most art for time immemorial.
His glitch art work is also influenced by the non-traditional graphical representation of music and sound.
Inspired by geometric abstraction and color field paintings, Menon’s process transitions from digital to traditional mediums of drawing and painting, uses code as a tool of expression, and is “driven by the notion of repetitive mark making as an act of meditation.”
Menon, 41, has had several solo exhibitions including at the SL Gallery in New York, and Fairleigh Dickinson University, New Jersey. His work has also been part of group shows at Nature Morte, New Delhi, Paul Kolkar, New York and other galleries.
Menon has recently painted with ink on porous rice paper. “I am taking a risk,” says Menon. “Many gallery owners and curators stay away from ink on paper, assuming they won’t sell for high prices. But I am less interested in challenging other people’s perceptions than challenging myself to explore new medium and techniques.”
The New York Presbyterian Queens Hospital, New York University’s Langone Medical Center and the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas, are among the institutions which own Menon’s works, including his ink on rice paper paintings.
Many individuals and curators find out about Menon’s work through his posts on Instagram, where he has 2,600 followers. His Instagram postings are popular because, not only does he post finished works or still studio shots, but Menon includes close-up fast forward videoclips of his hands, pens and paint in the process of creating a work in his studio.
Menon also works on videos, including music videos, installations, and documentaries. He was the art director and designer for Beneath the Horizon. Featuring timelines, videos and podcasts, this interactive documentary is about coping with the environmental damage caused by a five-million-barrel oil spill in the northern Gulf of Mexico in 2010 and a lesser known toxic oil spill in the southern Gulf in 2010.
As art director, Menon designed the Webby nominated and World Press Photo awarded Unknown Spring, an immersive digital documentary about Fukushima residents in the aftermath of the 2011 tsunami and nuclear disaster in Japan.
Interference. Ink & markers on WaterColor Paper. 24x18in. 2021
Contemporary artists Menon admires include Agnes Martin, Nasreen Mohamedi, James Turrell, William Kentridge and Vija Celmins. He says he rates an artist’s work through five Cs: Concept, Craft, Creativity, Clarity and Chutzpah, or boldness.
Menon is an adjunct faculty at the New York City College of Technology. He received his M.F.A from the Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore, in 2007, and a Bachelors in Visual Communication from Bharathiar University, Coimbatore, India.
In 2007, Menon spent his first week in New York viewing the works of Cezanne, Rembrandt, Picasso and other masters at the city’s Metropolitan, Frick, Modern Art and other museums. “Till then I had only seen photos of their works in book and magazines,” he says.
Menon is currently experimenting with 3-D printed sculptures and virtual reality techniques. In the commercial field, Menon does design and branding for Coca Cola, Walmart, Nikon, Yardley and other companies. “Income from my commercial work gives me the freedom to pursue the art work I want to create,” says Menon. “I can avoid trying to please gallery owners and curators and do not have to follow the latest buying craze among collectors.”
*Visakh Menon handles design for Global Indian Times.
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