Wave is the first of a new series of site-specific wall drawings and paintings that Srin is developing as part of his practice-based doctoral research. The colours, shapes and patterns in these works reference the design qualities of shell-suit sportswear from the mid 1980s to early 1990s. Srin is interested in how specific brands of that time period became adopted by different racial and social groups as a form of aspiration and collective identity. The work draws on the emblematic status of these within hip-hop, rave and casual subcultures to consider how the aesthetics of style can be reframed through art as a way to think about identity beyond categories of ethnicity and nationality.
Srinivas Surti currently lives and works in Suffolk and has exhibited his work in London and across the UK since 2002. He is also a lecturer in printmaking at University of Suffolk and a PhD candidate at Chelsea College of Art and Design – University of the Arts London.