Arunkumar’ sustained artistic investigation into a diversity of ecological concerns brings forth the disharmonies, which are created by the spread of sans-consciousness consumerist culture. This spread is in inverse proportion to the great decline of natural resources and habitations. With each work, Arunkumar brings in his own local, historical and cultural milieu. The work becomes a generative rather than a conclusive commentary of his concerns regarding the environment at large. His choice of medium of re-used and re-cycled goods, and consequently, the execution of such concern[s] reflects a negotiation between suburban life and a longing to return to his rural upbringing. Farmer takes the role of the protagonist and also becomes the subject to assert the integral role s/he plays in the preservation of environmental bio-diversity.
Arunkumar has been awarded several national and international artist’s residencies: Art Omi international Artist Residency, New York, [2011]; Artist in Residency, University of South Australia, Adelaide [2007 & 2002]; Public Art Residency at JNU Campus, New Delhi [2005]; International Artists Camp, George Keyt Foundation, Colombo, [2005]; CHROMA, Public Art Project, Bergen, Norway [2003]; KHOJ International Artist-in-residence, New Delhi & Modinagar [2000].
He has participated in numerous group exhibitions in India and abroad which includes Embrace Our Rivers, Goethe-Institute/Max Mueller Bhavan, Chennai [2018]; Sculpture by the Sea, Sculpture Biennale Aarhus Denmark [2015]; The Eye and The Mind: New Interventions in Contemporary Indian Art, China [2015]; Beyond Limits at San Diego Art Institute [2014]; Aesthetic Bind Citizen Artist: Forms of Address, Chemould, Mumbai [2013]; Crossing Space, Kunsthalle Faust, Hannover [2013].
The artist works and lives in New Delhi.
