Giving life to junk

Shruba Mukherjee is impressed by sculptor Ranjani Shettars creations that celebrate beauty in things that we throw into the dustbin!

She finds sense in nonsense, celebrates beauty in junk car parts and creates life literally out of the dustbin. Her creations have helped her evolve from an individual who appreciated the simple things in life to an activist crying hoarse against the dehumanising aspect of globalization.

Meet Ranjani Shettar, a sculptor who has sculpted the victory of human life against all odds.
Since she can perceive the beauty of life in every mundane thing, this Bangalore-based artiste, who recently won the Sanskriti Award in Delhi, picks up things that others throw away to create her installations.

Transforming simple materials into the magical, Ranjani uses materials such as muslin, tamarind powder, old car parts, lacquered wood and wax beads in her installations, each one appearing effortlessly natural but at the same time intricately crafted, to evoke the multiple, intersecting histories of the material.

Her creation ‘Thousand-Room House’, referring to the body as a home for the soul is basically made up of plastic sheets cut into diamond shapes and tied to each other by threads and then the sheets arranged with the help of ropes.

From constellations to funnel webs, clusters of berries to beehives, the works appear to spread organically across the space.

For instance, Vasanta ('Spring') is a vast web of hand-rolled beeswax balls strung in colours varying from sky blue through pale greens and yellows. As with other suspended works, the play of light and shadow creates a looming presence.

Cycles of consumption

Born in Bangalore, Ranjani did her Bachelors and Masters in Sculpture from Chitrakala Parishat (Institute of Fine Arts). Ask her about her inspiration and this thirty-something artiste will give a shy smile. "It is very difficult to say, may be it is nature, culture or society. I try to create whatever I see," says Ranjani.

However, on much coaxing, she mentions a few names like Somnath Hoare and Richard Dickens and the Dada Art Movement that started in Zurich between the two World Wars.

Her work also alludes to cycles of consumption and commodification, prompting analysis of what a technology-driven modernity's relationship is to nature.

Inspired by nature and drawing from experience, Ranjani's work combines movement in form and content in which exacting lines sculpted in space are invested with the attributes of the employed materials, as in ‘Just a bit more’, a monumental installation of thread and tiny beads of wax or in ‘Me, No, Not Me, Buy Me, Eat Me, Wear Me, Have Me, Me, No, Not Me’, in which old car parts are woven into elegant and organic flowing forms.

For creating this installation with junk car parts, Ranjani had to visit several junk yards in the city and that left this sensitive artiste numb with pain as she witnessed how plenty for a few induces poverty for many.

"When I was visiting junk yards where car parts were being piled up for sale or recycling I saw the labourers working there in inhuman conditions as they have to touch sharp objects with bare hands," says Ranjani.
"For me, a car symbolises the peak of consumerism. My installation with the car parts wants to convey the message that unbridled consumerism will only bring in misery," she says.

Employing organic materials invested with tradition and history, Ranjani creates multidimensional works that bring forth the metaphysical attributes of residing within a changing physical environment.

"Art is my strongest point and that is the language I know. Art in any case is a reflection of society and it conveys a message," she says.

And she strongly feels that creating good art, which will go beyond the galleries, will certainly make a change.

NEWS SOURCE