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Sreeraj Gopinathan (born 20 May 1969 in Kollam, India) is a German contemporary artist of Indian descent. His work is characterized by its interdisciplinarity and dominated in particular by projects based on environmental and climate-relevant concepts.
The experiences of childhood in a traditional healer family and in the nature rich environment of the coastal region of Kerala were decisive for Gopinathan's development.
For the first artistic experiments he used natural materials and paper, which he combined with cooked rice as an adhesive in order to make plastic forms.
Often he drew or painted portraits of acquaintances from the neighbourhood but also of famous personalities. He preferred to choose older people, whose facial features reflected their past life. Another interest in his youth was the discovery of the diversity of flavours and the use of spices in the cuisine of South India.
From 1987 to 1992 he studied painting at the Raja Ravi Varma College of Fine Arts in Mavelikkara. The few resources at his disposal limited his beginnings to drawing and painting in which he liked to capture human faces and natural structures. By combining the two, he developed his own style. In 1989 and 1993, he participated in the annual exhibition of the Kerala Lalithakala Akademi, a cultural organization of the government of Kerala and won the Annual State Award for Painting in 1993.
The enthusiasm for the humanistic and nature-bound life's work of the Indian poet and philosopher Rabindranath Tagore led Gopinathan to Santiniketan. From 1993 to 1996 he studied painting at the Visva-Bharati University under the painter Suhas Roy and parallel the French language under the writer Saraju Gita Banerjee. In 1993, he was awarded the scholarship of Visva-Bharati University and in 1995 the National Scholarship of the Ministry of Human Resource Development, government of India.
In 1996, Gopinathan received the Bourse du Gouvernement Français. With the residence scholarship, he studied fine arts at the École supérieure of the beaux-arts du Mans in France. Benefiting from the new techniques, he began experimenting with new components such as photography, light art, and installation. This resulted in a series of three-dimensional light-integrated objects.
In 1998, he moved to the south German city of Coburg. Making use of the experience gained during the employment at Landestheater Coburg he added a new segment − performance − to his compositions of light, darkness and space. Gopinathan integrated a time-bound action of the audience into the perception process. The first presentation of those contemplation rooms took place in 2000 in the Hanseatic city of Lemgo. In the following years he exhibited more works from this series in Ebern (2002), Bedheim (2002), Bad Königshofen in Grabfeld (2002) and Munich (2003).
Despite the different facets of his development, there exists a cohesion like a recurring theme throughout Gopinathan's creative process from the beginning − a universal attitude, the view of a large whole, of an intangible mystery, which seems to escape any attempt at rapprochement.
His passionate attachment to nature soon led to a confrontation with the impact of human life on the planet, which flowed seamlessly into his work. It increasingly developed into a practically implemented form of life, in which existence and art no longer form separate aspects, but merge into each other without a dividing line.
Sreeraj Gopinathan deems it as a necessity to assign an existential purpose to his projects and therefore connects them to the mainstream of life. Art should serve here as a tool to stimulate a change of attitude towards a more conscious way of thinking and acting.
In order to devote himself to detailed research, Gopinathan retired in 2004 from public appearances largely back. From his studies, two solution-oriented projects emerged, focusing on the relationship between nature and human in the context of the drastic changes on earth. To achieve this he combined various disciplines such as art, science, philosophy and ecology. Both projects allow an active participation of the audience in the artistic process. Sreeraj Gopinathan deems it as a necessity to assign an existential purpose to his projects and therefore connects them to the mainstream of life. Art should serve here as a tool to stimulate a change of attitude towards a more conscious way of thinking and acting.
In 2005, Gopinathan launched his first large-scale project OWIYAM in Kanthalloor, a remote location in the mountainous region of South India known as Western Ghats. The surrounding forest is characterized by a unique flora and fauna, but increasingly threatened by human influences. The project is dedicated to the construction of a timely Noah's Ark − a model space, a refuge for rare animals and plants, in which nature and human form a harmonious coexistence. The ultimate aim is to preserve biodiversity in a protected area. The involvement of the local population is presupposed by the underlying concept. Ultimately, the project contributes to the conservation of the rainforest, the lung of the planet. Practical trainings offered on topics such as reforestation, permaculture, clay-architecture, climate-friendly nutrition and cooking method as well as CO2-neutral energy production are a crucial parts of the project.
The fragility of environment and climate forms the nucleus of Gopinathan's second project titled SAMASYA, which began in 2016. With this project he addresses the industrial societies, the hub of a world in transition. Based on his perspective that the aspect food plays a key role in the unity of the entire web of life, he designed an energy reducing and resource saving, vegan nutritional concept. In order to achieve an ample social participation for the implementation of the project, he uses a mixture of methods such as Internet publication, performance, light installation and culinary art, which are assembled on the same stage. The project is centered around addressing fundamental human needs and aims to raise awareness within society, fostering a shift in collective consciousness. Its primary goal is to actively contribute to the preservation of Earth's ecosystem.
Since 2005 Sreeraj Gopinathan lives and works in Berlin and in Kanthalloor, South India.
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