Rahul Sarkar is a contemporary artist whose practice is primarily grounded in printmaking. The thematic terrains of his work include gender, sexuality, and self-expression. The practice expands on the very conditions of identity, not merely through visual representation but also through speculative associations. Beyond representation, the body becomes a site of continuous interventions to explore the speculative nature of gender and its inherent nonconformity. With multiple dimensions of approach, techniques, and narratives, Sarkar creates his own unique lexicon for queer world-building.
Deeply rooted in the subjectivities of his lived own experiences as an androgynous male in society, his work is often radically autobiographical. The positioning of the self itself is the methodology of his practice. Through the work, he navigates through the reality which are of wounds, phobias, and sorrows, and the ‘curious’ world of intimate subcultures. By making visible the performative and constructed nature of gender, the androgynous figure in his prints becomes a site of powerful interventions as well as a site of resistance that doesn’t adhere to the ‘legible’ social codes. The persistent and enigmatic presence of the body challenges and confronts the historically conditioned gaze. Central to his recent work is the sophisticated presence of ornamentation. They are not surface embellishments but a powerful conceptual apparatus that destabilises its conventional signifiers. By reclaiming ornamentation as a critical apparatus, they function as a psychic extension, a reflection of interiority rather than an aesthetic element.
Additionally, his practice is strongly influenced by his surroundings and the space he inhabits, including seasonal shifts and the landscapes around him. The observation of seasonal change becomes a metaphor for, and catalyst to, personal transformation. In terms of the process, the labour intense nature of printmaking, is integral to the thematic connection he makes with the work. He considers the labour-intense physical act of carving into wood or incising the matrix becomes a metaphor for the inscription of identity onto the self and the social body.
