photography by Jeff Hing and Sandeep Mukherjee
Wearing a safety vest, Professor Sandeep Murkherjee looks at his work through the entrance of the YouTube Theater at SoFi Stadium during the construction process.
“My work begins with the perspective that movement is primary and prior to space and time (spacetime). Motion does not happen in space and time but instead produces it. ”
—Prof. Sandeep Mukherjee
A working artist as well as a professor, Mukherjee creates paintings and sculptures that are displayed in galleries, museums or private spaces. But a new career in public art—a field where commissions are much sought-after—has taken flight. He already has been selected for large-scale permanent works at the Facebook offices in Los Angeles, a federal courthouse in Toledo, Ohio, and now the 6,000-seat YouTube Theater tucked beneath the roof of SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, home of the NFL’s L.A. Rams and Chargers.
With a master’s degree in industrial engineering from UC Berkeley and a master of fine arts from UCLA, Mukherjee brings a scientific understanding of such concepts as movement, malleability and color to his work. He created the 204 pieces of hand-molded aluminum on the walls of the theater’s lobby by wrapping the pliable metal around sections of tree trunks, cross-sections of trees, broken limbs and even rocks. Then he painted the molded shapes in gradients of intensely colored acrylic—oranges that look hot to the touch, blood reds and varied hues of goldenrod, lizard green, indigo and amethyst that merge into each other. Seen together, the pieces sometimes almost look like microorganisms on a slide. Viewed separately, they resemble archeological finds—bones, stone tools, even pieces of bodies.
“Luminosity, opacity, color, materiality, texture—all are shifting properties of the work that have an innate architectonic rhythm. I strive to make the experience of moving through the space vivid, transformative and impactful. ”
—Prof. Sandeep Mukherjee
“Depending on the time of day or night and the viewer’s location, the work becomes a membrane in flux, an interface that changes with the viewer’s perspective and movement; a porous skin that connects the inside and the outside. ”
—Prof. Sandeep Mukherjee
“Traditionally we think of space housing the work, but in my case the work communes with space—turning corners, echoing shadows, absorbing light and making room simply for what is there. ”
—Prof. Sandeep Mukherjee
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