March 14, 2020
BALTIMORE — Towards the end of my visit with Sangram Majumdar in his Baltimore studio, he looks at me and says, “Hey! Can I ask you a question?” He shows me what he is thinking of, compositionally, for a new painting. He asks me to weigh in on whether the space around the figure should be emptier or more full, and what I think of specific elements, like the figure’s shoes. “Do you think this will work?” he asks. We talk through the possibilities, and the next day he shares an image of the painting-in-progress. It occurs to me that Majumdar’s curiosity about what viewers will see, and how they will respond, is a crucial ingredient in the mix of his working process. His questions extend to what a painting is capable of expressing, how it can be done, and if it registers in our world.
Majumdar’s painting consistently challenges our expectations. Visual disorientation is part of the driving aesthetic of his work. Rendering may be easy, and color may be intuitive, but everything else is subject to open-ended, non-conclusive investigation. In earlier paintings, he showed interiors that veered back and forth between nameable, quotidian objects and unnameable “abstract” interruptions formed by his source images. Later, he began painting from set-ups assembled from photographic, art historical, or digital sources, on top of which he collaged cut paper or drew with strips of tape. His recent work turns to the walking figure as a recurring motif, still utilizing multiple elements to piece together — and intervene in — the formation of a clear narrative or definitive objecthood.
I’ve known Majumdar since about 2009, and in that time, I have been thrilled and inspired by the many visits I made to his studio (formerly in Industry City, Brooklyn), which revealed intense, rich color-worlds of paint and paper, and the most surprising set-ups: rearranged dollhouse furniture; cut paper and images laid out on tables like pieces of a mystery puzzle; image projections into corners of his space — and, sometimes, a mundane but beautiful segment of the outside world he points out from his window.
Born in Calcutta, India, in 1976, Majumdar has an MFA from Indiana University and a BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design. Recent solo exhibitions were held at Geary Contemporary and Steven Harvey Fine Art Projects, both in New York. He was also the subject of an exhibition at the Asia Society Texas Center, Texas, and of a traveling exhibition at Drew University, New Jersey, University of Tennessee-Chattanooga, and the University of Vermont. His work was included in recent group exhibitions at Shoshana Wayne Gallery and The Landing Gallery, both in Los Angeles, as well as Freight & Volume, James Cohan Gallery, and Gallery Zürcher, all in New York. Majumdar now lives and works in Baltimore, where he is a Professor of Painting at the Maryland Institute College of Art.
Read full Interview HERE
