Vipoo Srivilasa, “Shrine of Life/Benjapakee Shrine”, 2021, mixed-media installation with five ceramic deities, commissioned for APT10, purchased 2021 with funds from the Contemporary Patrons through the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art Foundation, collection: Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art, photo: QAGOMA.
Elena Dias-Jayasinha writes about two artists whose ceramic works invoke deities of inclusivity.
Soft steps, hushed tones, looking but not touching—the traditional gallery experience is not unlike visiting a temple. Both institutions house meaningful objects that, when brought together and arranged to a specific design, have the potential to transform our understanding of the world and our place within it. Although neither can promise a moment of revelation, both gallery and temple use visual cues to direct our attention and heighten our awareness. They resist the hustle and bustle of everyday life, carving out space for contemplation and reflection.
Throughout my life, I have visited many temples. Although I identify as atheist, I grew up attending Anglican church. Family lore on my Sri Lankan side suggests we converted from Buddhism to Christianity during the time of Portuguese colonisation. In recent years, I have travelled to numerous Buddhist temples throughout Asia, including in Sri Lanka.
Most of the temples I have visited were built to facilitate the worship of deities. Concepts vary across cultures but, generally, deities are defined as supernatural beings who control some aspect of life or personify a force. Many of these beings enact a moral code, often reflective of the period at hand. To my mind, this poses the question: if the gallery is similar to a temple, who are the deities we worship and what do they represent? Vipoo Srivilasa and Ramesh Mario Nithiyendran, two nationally renowned ceramicists, provide distinct takes on the contemporary deity.
Vipoo Srivilasa, “Always Better Together”, 2022, installation view, courtesy Olsen Gallery, Sydney, photo: Simon Hewson.
Vipoo Srivilasa creates collections of deities out of porcelain. Undeniably cute, these beings adopt the form of wide-eyed hybridised creatures, donning the ears of a rabbit, the face of a cat or the tail of a fish. Coated in flowers or feathers, they embody a range of playful poses, often gesturing the “V” sign for peace. Born in Bangkok in 1969, Vipoo began his ceramics journey at Rangsit University in the neighbouring province of Pathum Thani. In 1997, he moved to Melbourne to pursue postgraduate studies at Monash University. After completing his master’s degree at the University of Tasmania, he returned to Melbourne where he continues to live and work today.
Vipoo’s work explores themes of migration, identity and climate change, as well as his Buddhist faith, Thai culture and Australian life. The specific conversations he engages in continue to shift in response to personal and global circumstances. This is perhaps best exemplified by the works he created in Melbourne during the longest COVID-19 lockdown in the world. For the series Wellness Deities (2021), he invited people to create drawings of deities with powers capable of combating illness. Vipoo realised 19 of these drawings in porcelain and then exhibited them together at Linden New Art in Melbourne. A year later, he presented Always Better Together (2022) at Olsen Gallery in Sydney, displaying a series of deities promoting love and connection in the wake of the pandemic.
Vipoo Srivilasa, “Wellness Deities”, 2021, installation view, courtesy Linden New Art, Melbourne, photo: Theresa Harrison Photography.
Although Vipoo’s deities continue to evolve, they carry an enduring message of generosity, inclusion and hope. This message shines through in Shrine of Life/Benjapakee Shrine (2021), first shown in the 10th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art (APT10) at Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art. The installation relies on audience participation, an integral part of Vipoo’s practice since 2008. Audiences are invited to step through an arched entrance into a sanctuary housing five deities, modelled after Lak Mueang shrine in Bangkok. The scent of jasmine permeates the space, recalling how at Thai temples, the flowers are offered as phuang malai (garlands). At the front, there is an offering box for audiences to drop in a paper flower and ask for blessings and protection from one of the deities.
Each of the beings represents a quality important to Vipoo: love equality, spirituality, security, identity and creativity. Vipoo encourages audiences to reflect on these qualities and interpret them in their own way. By creating a space that is relatively non-prescriptive, he provides an opportunity for audiences to come together, reflect on their own journey and find unity in their differences. What makes his deities stand out, both in this work and more broadly, is how they embrace “cuteness” to bring levity to issues that can be contentious – in turn, promoting conversation that is gentle and caring.
Ramesh Mario Nithiyendran, “The Cave”, 2016-17, installation view, courtesy of the artist and Sullivan+Strumpf, photo: Zan Wimberley.
Although they embody similar values, Ramesh Mario Nithiyendran’s deities are much more provocative. Ramesh realises his deities as hand-built ceramics or public sculptures. Indebted to Neo-Expressionism, the figures are crudely modelled, violently expressive and glaringly bright. Although he identifies as atheist, Ramesh’s work reflects a fascination with religion, often drawing on Hindu and Christian mythologies, Indigenous folklore and neo-spiritualities. He also looks to his personal experiences, society and queer histories. Born in Colombo in 1988, Ramesh moved to Australia with his parents to escape the Sri Lankan Civil War. He studied at the University of New South Wales and, during his second year, started making “little sculptural things”. After completing his master’s degree in 2013, he received the New South Wales Visual Arts Fellowship (Emerging) in 2014. A year later, Ramesh undertook a mentorship with Vipoo, who was “heaps of fun and generous with his knowledge”.
Ramesh’s work engages in social discourse on idolatry in all its forms – whether it be the worship of a religious icon or a celebrity on a billboard. He questions the conventions and ideals promoted by these idols, and in response, creates his own. A useful example is his installation The Cave (2016-17), presented at Carriageworks in Sydney as part of the first edition of The National. Inside a dim bunker-like space, a series of demonic deities are revered on concrete plinths. Three were refigured after being shown at the National Gallery of Australia, while the fourth and most domineering was created for the exhibition out of clay, polystyrene and neon flex lights. As Ramesh explains, the monumental scale of the work brings to mind words such as “permanent, bravado, masculine, high production, expensive”. These qualities are heightened by the surrounding wall drawings, which include a large neon phallus. By embracing hyperbole, Ramesh parodies the patriarchy and masculinity to reveal them as deceptive. In fact, all of the deities he creates are actually genderfluid or gender ambiguous. Through his work, Ramesh delivers a tongue-in-cheek rejection of gender, social norms and beliefs as fixed concepts.
Ramesh Mario Nithiyendran, “Avatar Towers”, 2020-22, earthenware, 24k gold plated bronze, bronze, acrylic, porcelain, beads, synthetic hair, digitally printed textile, hessian, polyester, custom necklaces, epoxy, crystals and automotive paint, purchased with funds provided by the Mollie Douglas Bequest with the support of Bella and Tim Church 2021, collection: Art Gallery of New South Wales, courtesy of the artist and Sullivan+Strumpf, photo: Mark Pokorny.
Another of Ramesh’s works Avatar Towers (2020-22), recently displayed in the Art Gallery of New South Wales’s new building Naala Badu, demonstrates his inclusive, fun and cheeky approach to the contemporary deity. Seventy polychrome avatars of varying shapes and sizes cohabitate a structure made of hot pink scaffolding as if it were an apartment block. In Hinduism, “avatar” refers to the worldly incarnation of a deity. Ramesh’s work sees these materialised beings take on many forms – from small terracotta figures with gold trimmings to lumpy heads with extravagant crowns. They draw on various references, including the gallery’s collection of South and Southeast Asian sculptures, as well as the ornate interiors of the Hindu temples Ramesh visited as a child. Although the avatars all have their own eccentricities, in this work, they stand together in their individuality.
This seems to be the overarching link between Vipoo’s and Ramesh’s work. While visually, their work could not be more different, their interpretations of the contemporary deity stand for inclusivity and togetherness and are both sprinkled with humour. Their deities carry a clear agenda, even if they are less didactic than what one would find in a temple. With that in mind, perhaps the main difference between encountering a deity in a gallery or temple lies in the expectations we prescribe to the space we are entering—expectations that derive from our own personal beliefs, experiences and historical understanding.
Adorable and abrasive, cheering and challenging, Vipoo’s and Ramesh’s deities become a bridge between the secular and the sacred, the gallery and the temple.
Further Reading
“Next Phase: Ramesh Mario Nithiyendran.” The Ian Potter Cultural Trust. Last modified December 10, 2018.
Sullivan+Strumpf. “Ramesh Mario Nithiyendran ‘The Cave’, The National, Carriageworks Sydney.” April 20, 2017. 3 min., 42 sec.
Young, Michael. “Ramesh Mario Nithiyendran: Primordial Psychedelia.” ArtAsiaPacific, 106 (2017): 69.
About Elena Dias-Jayasinha
Elena Dias-Jayasinha is a Sri Lankan-Australian curator based in Brisbane. Over the past five years, she has worked at institutions including The University of Queensland Art Museum, Griffith University Art Museum and the Institute of Modern Art. Currently, Elena is Curator at Museum of Brisbane.
