One of Australia’s most collectable artists defines her own shadows

SYDNEY: Silences can sometimes be louder than sounds, and blacks and whites can startle more than a splash of colour. Just so, Sangeeta Sandrasegar’s shadows can cast deeper meanings than her actual installations. That is not to say that the installations are not stunning by themselves. 

“This project reflects upon a period last year when it seemed that certain artistic and intellectual ideals I had been working for over the past 5 years were, if at least no longer achievable, seemed suddenly pointless and futile,” says the 29-year-old, who has been identified in a 2005 list of 50 of Australia’s most collectable artists.

Her untitled work for the 5th Asia Pacific Triennial (APT5) starting December 2 at the Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane comprises a wall installation of four hundred paper cut-out components.

Each depict hands in the shadow-play position of a bird, and when installed will outline an empty space in the shape of a human figure. Each cut-out hand will be plain, bejewelled or hennaed.

The absent figure within the installation is loosely based upon Sandrasegar’s own body height and the cut-out hands are based on her hand size. Each cut-out, made from white cartridge paper brings out its own dark shadow on the wall.  Inspired by an excerpt from Czech author Bohumil Hrabal’s work, this project is about the constant will for dreaming, says Sandrasegar in her artist statement. It is about the hope of dreams and the loss of them, and then about the strength to seek them anew, or as readjusted and realigned. 

Her work was included in the 2nd Auckland Triennial in 2004 and the Museum of Contemporary Art’s Primavera 2004, an annual exhibition of the work of emerging Australian artists under the age of 35. She has had nine solo exhibitions across Australia and in Los Angeles since 2000 .The shadow and henna motifs have continued from her Sandrasegar’s earlier works like in her previous show, Goddess of Flowers which was based on the brutal true story of Phoolan Devi.

“My art is concerned with the intersections of cultures, and I use the shadows to communicate the ideas of in-between place(s),” explains Sandrasegar. “We see an image in the cut-out work, but then it creates another life, another view point in the shadow it casts.  Since the works are often lit so that you need to see the shadow to fully understand the image, highlights the constant tensions that exist in our cultural stereotypes, mores or customs,” she adds. 

Despite the Indian motifs in her work, Sandrasegar admits she has never visited the country though she has an awareness of her Indian-ness. Her father is a Tamil-Indian from Malaysia while her mother is Anglo-Australian, and out of her immediate family, the only one to have visited India.  Until the age of 11 she grew up between Kuantan, Malaysia and Melbourne, Australia, after which her family settled permanently in Melbourne. 

Yet, questions of identity are always difficult answer. Sandrasegar says, “When I was in Australia, I was regarded as either Indian or Malaysian — not Australian.  When I was in Malaysia I was regarded as Australian or Indian. Yet in either place there was always a label of Indian-ness that led me to believe and connect quite strongly with what was an unknown identity.”