Watercolour on paper, 2024
Shapes float in every direction in Kuruneru’s watercolour paintings, creating a multi-perspectival experience inspired by tenth-century Chinese landscape paintings—an anchor to his own Chinese heritage.
Drawing on the 10th century Chinese “floating perspective” painting philosophy (a kind of multi-perspective precursor to Cubism), Expressionist woodblock prints, and the New York School of Ab-ex, Shawn Kuruneru’s paintings bridge the East-West dichotomy in ways both personal and aesthetic, subtle and literal.
Kuruneru received his BFA from Concordia University, Montréal. His work is in the collections of the Portland Museum of Art, the National Gallery of Canada Library Collection (Toronto), the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Thomas J. Watson Library (New York), and CELINE (Paris). Kuruneru currently lives in Montréal.