Anirudh Shaktawat

Anirudh Shaktawat (b. 1999) is a sculptor based out of the Southern Aravalli Ranges of Rajasthan, India. He received a BFA with Distinction from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2021). His place centric practice responds to the daily experiences of uneven rains, excessive humidity, and disintegrating hills that are symptomatic of the Anthropocene. Embedded in research on devotional practices and conceptions of nature, his works question, and aim to dissolve, material and spatial boundaries. His sculptures are made with building materials that engage in mediation of heat, moisture, and light. Their compositions refer to liminal spaces like thresholds, courtyards, ghats (riverbanks), and dams which enable interaction with these elements. Effectively, the works bounce between the bodily, domestic, infrastructural, and environmental scales. Currently, his practice explores the metaphorical, material, and sensorial properties of water which generate muddled sensations and conceptual states that diffuse the edge between the body and its environs. Stains, spills, and seepages break the physical and imagined boundaries between the interior and exterior; as water seeps into walls and moisture permeates skin, the porous concrete becomes the epidermis and walls become the surrounding hills.