MCAD MFA

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Sreekishen Nair ’14, Sculpture/Mixed Media Installation

April 8, 2014

The title of my thesis show, BioNuminescence, celebrates the fascinating beauty of the small animals and plants that share the landscape with us. The name of the exhibition is a compound word designed to suggest the sacredness of the ecology. It fuses the prefix “bio”, which references the biological with the word “numinous” that indicates the presence of the sacred. BioNuminescence combines these terms into a pun on the word “bioluminescence,” which is the emission of light from living organisms like fireflies and glowworms.

The theme of radiance generated by living beings is made into an analogy for the amazing ways in which smaller organisms “light up” the world by their presence and their activities: for example the way insects pollinate plants, and the way plants turn sunlight into nutrition for so many other beings. Thus, the word BioNuminescence communicates the sacred brilliance of the small, the commonplace, and the often unnoticed life forms that teem around us, and that keep our world in balance.

As an artist, I derive tremendous inspiration from the elegance of biological shapes like flower stamens, micro-crustaceans and the bodies of different insects. In order to convey the reverence and feeling that I have for them, I render these subjects with heavy stylization, such as decorative halos and exaggerated colors. In BioNuminescence, this kind of stylization not only expresses the aura of sacredness within the subjects of the art, but also points to some of their less-tangible wonders: for example, bees can see infra-red light, and plants signal to them through the infra-red “colors” on their bodies. Bees and plants perceive and express colors that we humans cannot. In BioNuminescence, I use deeply saturated hues to suggest the richness of those that radiate beyond human perception, and the ecological relationships that these encapsulate.

If form is to follow function, then the function of this art is to share something beautiful with others, and I design my forms towards that purpose. Insofar as visual delight can uplift one’s spirit by pleasing the senses, I propose that there is an ethical aspect to the effect which beautiful adornment can generate. My art is thus highly ornamental, and combines the different processes that I have learned at MCAD in order to provide a richly decorative atmosphere. Developing from micro-lens photos of tiny living beings, BioNuminescence pulls together printed textiles, carved wood and laser-cut glass into a sacramental installation designed to elevate one’s appreciation of the microcosmos that flourishes right in one’s own backyard.