Entangled in abstractions
A seductive 50-foot mural by Sandeep Mukherjee is composed from 10 modular units, each painted in a lush abstraction that suggests the moist environs of a tropical jungle.
Except in commercial applications like wallpaper, where repeating patterns must match up, it is unusual for organic imagery to mesh with modular construction.
But Mukherjee’s does, even without any repeat patterning, and it is effective. Seven feet tall and shown spanning two adjoining walls at Chimento Contemporary, the enveloping mural draws a viewer in.
The surface palette is all browns, greens, purples, indigo and black. Flashes of underpainting in gold, crimson, yellow and other hot hues add dimension and visual heat.
The color is mottled. Mukherjee paints using water-based acrylics, which he sprays or else drags across a matte, paper-like plastic film with wide and sometimes broom-like brushes. Intertwined rivulets recall the marbleized endpapers of a luxurious book.
What’s especially unusual about the mural’s modular construction is that absence of a repeating pattern. Seams between panels don’t match up. Gallery instructions say that each panel can be installed in any direction and in any order, a do-ityourself plan that underscores its title — “Mutual Entanglements.” It’s the entanglement that counts.
In Mukherjee’s beautiful bayou, or down at the bottom of his saturated garden, every which way is up.