He creates his most important sculptures from things that the rest of the world considers depreciated: discarded materials and aged waste such as wood, bones, twigs, nests, hair, and leather. But every one of his creations acclaims itself a unique place in the artistic world. He breathes life into those objects that are thrown away and the wastes transform into beautiful sculptures through his hands. Such revitalized sculpting raises the objects out of their material confines and makes them into energetic forms.
To speak in the words of Valsan, “the placing of an object or the angle in which the object is made to stand is what our eyes perceive as sculptures. This makes us feel an enlarged value on the object or sculpture that is not there. My approach to sculpture is to combine disparate parts and provide a wholeness that can never be achieved through abstraction. It is enough to put aside the parts that do not fit together and the sculpture will gather and emerge into its physical form.”
Valsan Koorma Kolleri is a Kerala-based sculptor. He completed his fine arts course at Chennai College of Fine Arts and went on to complete his post-graduation at Baroda College of Fine Arts. He established his early artistic career in attempts to express the construction of the human body and its dynamics in geometrical abstractions.
He excites us through artful communication transcending time, taking us through the ancient and modern eras by creating Totemic formats from concrete and limestone mixtures. His brass sculptures made by bringing together organic and geometrical forms are still praised by many critics and are considered one of the greatest of all time. Bringing together iron and other metal wastes that he collects from the vendors of discarded iron during his travels, and linking them with brass pots to make sculptures, is an art form of his own.
In the later 1990s, he moved along the way of ecological and architectural art forms. For some time, through the schemes developed by the government and other private organizations, he worked to install artistic sculptural forms in public places such as parks and places of entertainment. He created a pyramidic sculpture at Subash Chandra Bose Park in Cochin using the Stucco Technique. It is a huge structure, made up of various and multiple small parts.
He has exhibited his sculptures in India and various parts of the world. He was honored with many awards and encomiums such as the 6th Bharat Bhavan Biennale of Indian Contemporary Art Prize, the National Lalith Kala Academy award, and the Kerala Lalith Kala Academy award. He was also honored with an opportunity to travel to Paris to explore and learn more about sculpting. Among the Masters of sculpting that India has seen, he has charted his own unique living space. His creations always attempt to move the grammar of art towards the philosophical realms of simplicity and can be considered contemporary treasures.
Valsan Koorma Kolleri, one of the greatest Indian sculptors of present times, is set to talk about his life experiences and the people he met along the way in Cuckoo Conversations Live Chat, today (7th May 2020) at 5 p.m. Listening to a man who has made his own life itself an art will for sure change our minds and our craving for excellence.