Pinaki R Mohanty

Pinaki Ranjan Mohanty is a Bhubaneswar, Odisha-based sculptor. Pinaki primarily takes his hometown, Chilika Lake as a conceptual site to respond ecologically, culturally and historically through his artistic practice. As a sculptor, Pinaki’s is deeply influenced by the current materiality, literature and socio-political conditions of Chilika. The artist questions the politics of aesthetics as well as that of neo-liberal interventions to his land and its forgotten memories. Although he takes the water bodies of Chilika as the conceptual ground for his oeuvre, his larger intention is to trigger questions around global waterbodies, poetic and literary references around lakes, their relationships, representations and consequences of man-made events in post-capitalist times. Pinaki materialises his thoughts through sculptures, interactive installations and site specific works, where the spectator can be a part of his experiences. He approaches art from an extremely personal perspective which makes his oeuvre utterly and irresistibly powerful. That strength then, grows into a much larger universal landscape of concern as it demands new avenues to understand water bodies and current causality.