"I am a part and a tiny fraction of nature defined by my ego. I would like to keep expanding my circle by being open towards everything around me and trying to find the hidden meaning."
Alwar Balasubramaniam
Kaayam (Detail) | 2008 | Fiberglass, wood and acrylic
Over the decades Alwar Balasubramaniam has had a sustained and ever-deepening relationship with the natural world—not only its landscapes or physical elements, but the forces that surround us. Working across a range of media and materials, Balasubramaniam, known also as Bala, focuses these life-giving forces in ways that make them visible and tangible—bringing the geological and elemental to human-scale. Bala’s bodily knowing of nature has been critical to his work over time—work which seeks continuously to investigate the possibilities of the senses to capture and engage with that which extends beyond them. With searching, always-curious attention, Bala probes our perception, pushing past normal habits of seeing, feeling, and relating – making visible what we otherwise overlook in the course of our daily living.
Balasubramaniam’s work revolves around the notions of transition and transformation...His sculpture fuses intellectual, emotional and spiritual concerns.
Vesela Sretenovic, The Phillips Collection
Nothing From My Hands | 2010-2011 | Fiberglass and acrylic (Detail)
From intimate and barely perceptible to room-size installations—Bala harnesses the potentiality of each material to work in new and unexpected ways. Bala playfully challenges viewers to question and ultimately expand the limits of their perception. In every case, his interest remains steady: to open our eyes and minds, quite literally, to the world around us.
Balasubramaniam has long investigated thresholds between presence and absence and the physical and the spiritual, particularly in relationship to himself.
Shanay Jhaveri, The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Bala’s hand is felt as much as seen, present in the ways it moves like the wind through the matter around it or gently guiding the water as it flows through his landscape.
Kasturba Lalbhai Museum
Bala’s artworks … pay a homage to a life lived in close proximity to nature...There is something simple but magical in the organic world he re-creates and the sense of harmony he aspires to.
Sangita Jindal, Art India
By foregrounding the ease with which matter can be converted into states of immateriality, Balasubramaniam reveals to us how flesh might be sublimated into spirit.
Artforum
Across the three decades of his career, Bala has become known for his continuous investigation of the material and natural world, along with our capacity to explore, identify and comprehend it. Keenly interested in ways of accessing those parts of life too small, too vast, or simply too everyday to be readily seen, his works challenge viewers to expand their ways of seeing and refocus their habits of attention.
Bala’s works have been featured in exhibitions and collections worldwide, including The Metropolitan Museum of Art (MET), New York; The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York; The Phillips Collection, Washington, DC; Guggenheim Museum, New York; Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan; Kiran Nadar Museum of Art (KNMA), New Delhi, India; Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, Washington; École des Beaux Arts, Paris, France; Lalbhai Museum, Ahmedabad, India; Essl Museum, Austria; National Portrait Gallery, Canberra, Australia, 1st Singapore Biennale; and 18th Sydney Biennale. In 2001 he was given the Joan Miro foundation award accompanied by a solo exhibition. Bala has been a guest lecturer at the Art Department of Cornell University in Ithaca, NY and a featured speaker at TED.
Alwar Balasubramaniam (Bala) was born in 1971 in Tamil Nadu, India. He received a BFA from the Government College of Arts, Chennai, India, in 1995 after which he continued his studies in Edinburgh and Vienna. In 1998 he was artist in residence at The MacDowell Colony in NH after which he returned to Bangalore, where he lived and practiced till 2015. Subsequently Bala moved to the countryside near Tirunelveli in Tamil Nadu where he created his home and studio and continues to live and work.
Untitled, 2020-2022
Oil on canvas
75″ x 122"
TG 4558
Untitled, 2022
Earth and oil on canvas
40″ x 70″ | Framed: 41″ x 71″
TG 4559
Untitled | 2022
Oil on canvas
49″ x 76″
TG 4560
Nathikarai | 2022
Earth on canvas
34″ x 67″
TG 4535
Lost light, 2022
Iron, terracotta, canvas, wood
76″ x 72″ x 13″
TG 4545
Drift, 2022
Earth, cast fiberglass, wood
78″ x 78″ x 2.5″ | Installation dimensions variable
TG 4564
Blown Away, 2021
Sandstone
In 9 parts: 18” x 14” x 14” | 22.5” x 18” x 17” | 24” x 16” x 16” | 18” x 18” x 13.5” | 18” x 17.5” x 13” 21” x 18.5” x 16.5” | 21” x 14” x 15” | 24” x 14” x 16.5” | 24.5” x 16.5” x 16.5”
TG 4549
Time twist, 2022
Cast iron
42.5″ x 17″ x 17″
TG 4567
Untitled, 2022
Terracotta, pigments and concrete
25″ x 25″ x 14″
TG 4861
Cloud Line, 2022
Acrylic, pigments and earth on canvas
49” x 49”
TG 4854
Trapped in, 2018 - 2019
Earth, pigments on canvas
44" x 44"
TG 4085
Time Line, 2022
Sumi ink, indigo, earth and pigments on canvas
60″ x 58″
TG 4278
Dark Light, 2022
Soot, iron and pigments on board
48” x 48”
TG 4536
Untitled, 2020
Earth on canvas
28″ x 20″
TG 4275
Pulse, 2020
Pigments and acrylic on canvas
117.5″ x 77.5″
TG 4277
Withhold, 2018
Sandstone
22” x 32” x 16”
TG 4080
Study for a liquid mountain, 2017-18
Fiberglass and iron
111" x 56" x 56"
TG 3950
I was like you, you will be like me, 2018 - 2019
Clay and cast fiberglass
7" x 73.5" x 4.5"
TG 4081
Under current, 2015
Acrylic on cast fiberglass
14" x 29" x 2"
TG 3735
Rain in the midnight, 2015-16
Graphite and acrylic on cast fiberglass
45" x 84" x 3"
TG 3729
Wind Curve, 2018
Natural indigo pigments on resin cast
36" x 44"
TG 4041
Layers of wind, lines of time, 2013-14
Sandstone
35" x 31" x 21.5"
TG 3549
Surge, 2013
Sandstone
14" x 23" x 47"
TG 3544
Body as shell, 2011-2015
Sandstone
5.5" x 19" x 31.5"
TG 3731
Sk(in), 2009-2011
Iron and brass
105" x 99" x 99”
TG 2386
Dead-line, 2011
Iron
48" x 19" x 105"
TG 2742
Knots, 2011
Iron
153" x 24" x 36”
TG 2739
Into One, 2011-14
Cast aluminum
72” x 48” x 42”
TG 3374
Nothing From My Hands, 2010-2011
Fiberglass and acrylic
480" x 13" x 144"
TG 2732
Nothing from my hands, 2011-2012
Granite
64" x 54" x 67"
TG 2737
Hidden Waves, 2008
Fiberglass and Acrylic
12 x 12 (Each of 12)
Kaayam, 2008
Installation in four parts
Fiberglass, wood and acrylic
Dimensions variable
TG 1889
The Tree Inside, 2006-2007
Fiberglass, silicone, charcoal on paper
Cast: 138” x 47” x 83” | Drawing: 58” x 76”
TG 1495
Shell as a Body, 2007
Fiberglass, wood, acrylic
18” x 21” x 8”
TG 1553
Shadow of the Shadow of the Shadow, 2007
Fiberglass, wood, acrylic
49" x 150" x 17"
TG 1547
Link, 2009
String, hook and magnet
52" x 71" x 71"
TG 2028
In, But Out, 2005
Fiberglass cast from self and acrylic
78" x 32" x 8"
TG 1289
Untitled, 2004
Cast from self, sand fiberglass, evaporating compound, acrylic and wood
18" x 24" x 20"
TG 1201
Self in Progress, 2002
Fiberglass cast from self, cloth, acrylic, wood
45" x 33.5" x 19"
TG 1080
Untitled, 2004
Fiberglass, acrylic, rope, dust
58" x 134" x 5.5"
TG 1205
Untitled, 2002
Fiberglass, rope and acrylic
40" x 120" x 28"
TG 1081
