Ramesh Mario Nithiyendran. Blue spiky head with gold teeth, 2021, Earthenware, 74 x 41 x27 cm. Courtesy: The artist and Sullivan+Strumpf, Sydney.

Following major sculptural commissions for The Art Gallery of New South Wales, HOTA and Dark MOFO, for The Guardians, Ramesh Mario Nithiyendran floods the gallery with an installation of cacophonous guardians, protector figures of ceramic and bronze.

Produced in the artist’s signature neo-expressionist and polychromatic style, the figures extend the artist’s unconventional and irreverent approach to the medium. Ranging from larger-than-life to intimate scale, they embody elaborate building and glazing strategies that the artist has been developing over the past year.

The title of this exhibition gestures to broad histories related to sculptural and ritualistic icons designed to protect from evil. The artist is particularly interested in mythological narratives across the Asia Pacific. While he references imagery of Japanese Nio guardians as well as Hindu Dvarapala door gate guardians, his influences are diverse. As the artist states, ‘the [guardian] figure’s allusions to ideas around regeneration, renewal and even collapse are particularly pertinent in our current global climate defined by social, environmental and public health shifts/upheaval’.

Please note: the gallery is currently closed due to Covid-19 restrictions, click here to view the exhibition online.

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