
Secret Body, 2019-2020 Fiberglass and granite dust 65″ diameter x 19"
N.N. Rimzon’s many-decade career has been devoted to work across media, including installation, sculpture, painting, and drawing. His early artistic formation, in conversation with the tenets of minimalism and conceptualism, has set him apart from a narrative tradition of painting in India. His works examine the relationship between art and life, which has evolved from his deep interest and respect for materials. Rimzon’s work balances recognizable representation with a profound sense of mystery. The figures in his work are symbolic, borderline mythological in their presentation, which follows the reoccurring themes of fecundity and divinity in his body of works. Connections between the natural world and the figure, where the concept of the figure and the environment are at odds, are explored in more narrative-style paintings. Rimzon affirms his practice as an extension of and distillation of the classical thought and traditions that have continued to infuse life and art in India for millennia.
Rimzon’s works have been exhibited at museums across the globe including The National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul, Korea; Museum of Modern Art, (MuHKA), Antwerp, Belgium; 2nd Asia – Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art (APT), Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, Australia; Kiran Nadar Museum of Art (KNMA), Delhi, India; Art Gallery of New South Wales (AGNSW), Sydney, Australia; Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Monterrey (MARCO), Mexico; Berkeley Art Museum (BAM), Berkeley, CA;; Busan Biennale, South Korea; Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth; Asia Society, New York, NY; Queens Museum of Art, New York, NY; 5th Beijing International Art Biennale, National Art Museum of China; Singapore Art Museum; Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Taiwan; National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA), Mumbai, India and The Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Netherlands.
Nedumgottil Narayanan Rimzon (N.N. Rimzon) was born in 1957 in Kakkoor, Kerala, India. Rimzon earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) in sculpture from the College of Fine Arts, Trivandrum (1982), a Masters of Fine Arts in sculpture at Maharaja Sayajirao University, Baroda (1984) and a Masters of Arts from the Royal College of Art, London (1989). Rimzon taught Sculpture at the College of Fine Arts in Trivandrum, India and was the Head of the Art School from 2011-2014. Rimzon lives and works in Trivandrum, Kerala.