Exploring Connections: Artwork by Radhika Mathews
Untitled #3, acrylic and silk on canvas
Radhika Mathews currently lives and works in Newton Massachusetts. She uses her artwork as a means of exploring connections between objects, environments, people, and experiences. In some of her recent work, Radhika uses scrap material originating from traditional Indian saris to explore her own personal cultural background.
Most of Radhika’s works are abstractions, looking more at colour and texture than figures. I enjoy the rough, heavy texture that tends to prevail in Radhika’s works – it looks like she is using a very large brush, or perhaps even sponges, palette knives and other less traditional materials to play with the manipulation of paint. In some works, it looks as though she has textured the canvas before painting on it, creating a rigid pattern of texture that echoes a pattern that might be found on a textile sample – including the small square cuts of saris that decorate some of the works.
