Into the Rainforest 1-4 is inspired by the artist’s journey into the Amazon rainforest in Brazil. Rather than using paintbrushes, the artist uses palette knives and scrapers. Using only two primary colours – yellow and blue – to create layered colours, movement, and texture, the work displays bold mark-making and repetitive swirls of yellows, blues and greens that suggest the presence and vitality of life within the landscape.
The journey starts with the equatorial sun flattening all shapes and colours of the forest Into the Rainforest 1. As you go deeper into the narrow waterways of the Rainforest, the environment becomes increasingly immersive. The swirls of the Amazon River take you into the forest Into the Rainforest 2, 3. As the forest canopy thickens, the colours intensify and deepen.
Chromatically, the work is inspired by one of the artists’ favourite books, Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. You see tones shift and change from the lighter tones at the forest’s edge early in the series, swirling into deeper, more saturated hues in the still waters where caymans hide under the swampy banks of the Amazon River at the end of the series, Into the Rainforest 4.
You may purchase this and other works of the artist online from the Songbyrde Places Near and Far Collection.
To see more of the artist’s work, visit the Sofap Pop-up Art Gallery, Fulham Broadway where you can acquire work from The Iberian Collection.
About the Artist: Sumi Sastri
