An Interview with Padma Rajendran
Becoming aware of Padma Rajendran’s work will be among the very short list of fabulous things that happened during the COVID-19 lockdown. As a (virtual) resident in UT Austin’s terrific Guest Artist in Print Program earlier this Fall, Padma presented a wonderful lecture on her work that thanks to the pandemic we could thankfully (virtually) attend! We love seeing how printmaking techniques weave their way through her pieces; never assuming the role of starring lead but instead becoming a gorgeous textural chorus that collectively support the complex stories of her work.
Along the way, Dye on silk with stitching, dimensions varied, 2019
When did you first start printing or using printmaking techniques in your work? Do you remember what prompted your interest?
I started printmaking in college and experimented with monotype, screenprint, and lithography. I remember not appreciating screen printing at the time. It’s something I enjoy and rely on the most nowadays and lithography feels like lost knowledge to me even though I felt very comfortable with it at the time! I’ve always been interested in the relationship of print to drawing in a sculptural sort of way. It gives space for thinking in between and around the layers of information alongside an evidence of time.
In school, I recognized printmaking was important to know as a Fine Art technique, but like many I didn’t know what printmaking was exactly in this context and did not initially see it in connection to the decorative objects I grew up with like Batik and block printed textiles. It wasn’t till I was out of college that I appreciated the possibilities within reworking an intaglio plate or becoming absorbed in the alchemy of printing monotypes. I became attracted to the balance of the immediacy and intervention of the press as a kind of mediator between myself and the plate.
Where do you typically make your work? Home studio? Shared space?
Currently in my home studio. I tend to scatter myself and work in different areas of my home. In warm months, I am in the backyard, sometimes in my actual studio space, at the kitchen table, on my bedroom floor, and in the dining room. It’s a bit much sometimes, but for now that’s what’s happening. If it is a non-pandemic time, I really strive to squeeze in a residency which in many ways is a shared space. I love to abandon the constraints of a known, physical space and let the work be guided by the new environment and unfurling story that occurs there.
9-9 Lunchlore, Resist, dye,and beads on fabric, 44” x 70”, 2017
How do you see your print background informing your more expanded practice?
I rely on printmaking to add layers of reference to the work in different ways. Often this contribution is vital and subtle, as if the printed image has always been there as a part of the surface material without my intervention. With print, how it exists on the surface is so unlike a drawn line. With drawing, I easily recall the surface’s history before my mark or intervention. I have a harder time conceiving of the surface before the printed mark–as if the surface material and printed information have always been together. Those cumulative layers and entrance into the visual world of a material’s living surface is important for me to contemplate.
Who would you love to collaborate with?
An ongoing daydream is collaborating with a historical institution and creating a print and sculptural installation in relation to their collection or geographic region. There are so many sites that feature one particular story as the main event, and I am curious to explore a visual encounter that highlights the peripheral events or intimate moments that were crucial to what happened at the center of the story.
I have been daydreaming about making woodcut prints and some functional home objects for meals and domestic rituals. I’m planning to make some ceramic functional objects with my friend that runs Clay Pond Studios this winter. In the future, I would love to collaborate with a sculptor or an animator. It would be exciting to bring another dimension and movement to my work.
What are you working on at the moment?
Right now I am doing a Riso edition with the print fellows at University of Texas at Austin, which I’m so excited about! I’ve spent the spring and summer drawing and thinking even more about interior spaces and longing for the faraway. So I’m very ready to do a series of prints that expands the presence of these ideas. I’m excited about the finished prints entering people’s homes and living alongside them. Also, I am on the Prints For Protest leadership board and doing preparatory work for the soon launch of the Fall 2020 campaign. Aside from that, I’m cooking a lot and doing lots of drawings for new work on fabric.
Each feature post in the Womxn in Expanded Print series is accompanied by a donation to the social justice cause of each artist’s choosing in their name. Padma’s chosen organization is Yellowhammer Fund.