Sandeep Mukherjee: The Eternal Dance

Sandeep Mukherjee, Intersecting, (one panel of a two panel piece) 2010-25, ink on duralene, 57 x 86 inches, Photo Gary Brewer

By GARY BREWER October 7, 2025 

“[A]ll molecules repeat the patterns of one another till complex new ones are formed. 

They make others like themselves and a new dance starts.”

—Richard Feynman, The Value of Science (1955)

“The sun is new each day.”

—Heraclitus

Patterns and movement: Tandava, the eternal dance. Nothing is permanent, nothing is fixed; we never walk through the same river twice. Atoms and energy vibrate at different frequencies, manifesting one form or another. We believe in our sense of self and that our bodies are discrete entities, concrete realities fixed in time and space, but this is in part an illusion. Reality is a shape-shifting phenomenon, and we are mere atoms with consciousness in this dynamic chimerical universe. These are some of the ideas and insights that fuel the intricate play of material, process, pattern and form in the exquisite artworks of Sandeep Mukherjee.

I spent a morning with the artist in his studio, an industrial space filled with his large-scale paintings and sculptures that hang from the ceiling, rest on the floor, or are mounted on the walls. During our long conversation, I asked him what it was he was trying to do, what he hoped to convey in his work. 

“I want to create moments of joy. I want to experience the joy of discovery and of making things, and share that joy with others. My work comes out of curiosity, out of a ‘what if’ state of mind. These objects that I make are embedded with my experience of life. I want my audience to be deeply affected by my work, to be present in that moment, and to be changed from the experience.” 

He speaks with great energy, his words come quickly, his passion and conviction expressed in his animated manner.

Mukherjee was born in India. His earliest memories are of being swaddled in his mother’s saris. His young eyes gazing through the shifting layers of vivid colors and patterns in the beautiful fabrics left a deep impression on him: they are part of who he is and inform his work. “When I first saw Mark Rothko’s paintings, I thought to myself, the color gradients of my mother’s saris are more beautiful than these!”

He was very close to his grandmother, who was blind. “As a child, we would spend time together, walking through our garden, and she would touch the plants, feeling the edge of a leaf, describing the contour of its edge. Seeing through touch. The pattern of the leaf’s shape would become the cadences of classical Indian music in her mind. In turn, I would describe the sensations and feelings of the colors to her. This experience affected me deeply.” 

Sandeep Mukherjee, studio shot, (foreground work in progess) painting mounted on wall - Excavating, 2014-2025, 72 x 135 inches, ink on duralene Photo Gary Brewer

When he came to the United States at 22, he studied engineering at UC Berkeley. While working toward a master’s degree in engineering, he took part in the COBE satellite project, analyzing the cosmic radiation left over from the Big Bang. “When I saw the patterns of this energy on the computer screens from the beginning of the universe, it had an enormous impact on me. To know that we are made up of atoms and energy—and that everything we see is constantly in movement, in process, always changing—shaped my philosophical perspective. After a short period of time working in the science world, I realized I wanted to be a creative artist. So I went back to school to study art.” In his art, the boundaries of self are fluid. His work and the way he uses materials are all fused within his philosophical viewpoint that existence is an ever-changing process of folding and unfolding in intricate patterns.

His artworks are visually and physically tactile. The haptics one experiences in his work reach back in time to the experience with his grandmother in their garden, and also touch upon his desire to make seen what is unseen, a poetic allusion to the quantum and particle physics that awakened in Mukherjee a desire to become an artist. His works express something about the strange state in which we exist: experiencing the firm, hard reality of the phenomenal world while simultaneously knowing that it is all particles, energy and movement manifesting form in time and space. 

A large piece in his studio, “Porous Skins, Spectral Visions” (2023), is comprised of four thin sheets of aluminum. The metal is supple enough that when pressed against a solid object, in this case a tree, it becomes a relief of its contours. To create this work, the artist pressed his body against the metal to capture the shape of the tree. He repeated this on four different panels, creating four buckling, folding, irregularly shaped skins that hang from the ceiling. He then used a drill-like tool to perforate the surface, voiding out almost as much matter as what is left. They are finished with an exquisite patina. Mukherjee is a beautiful colorist, and the subtle tones and gradients give the panels a mysterious, subdued aura. These color transitions, from deep near-black to dark olive greens to almost iridescent metallic blues and strange tertiary hues, suggest his childhood: the reverie of peering out through his mother’s layers of multicolored saris.

Mukherjee spoke about this piece. “When we touch something, feeling its surface, it is a haptic way of seeing. These skins are like a residue of this contact, a skin left over from the space between our bodies and the phenomenal world. It is a way to make something that we cannot see visible.”

Seeing the work from one side in his studio, with the papered-over storefront windows letting in a luminous wall of light, suggests gazing into the night sky at the starry firmament, the pinholes in the dark panels letting light through. The buckling contours of the tree forms are ambiguous and morphing: they are trees and bodies, bulges and hollows, the ghostly apparition of a barely discernible, elusive presence. Mukherjee spoke of the influence of Deleuze and his idea that the universe is never static, but always folding and unfolding in an endless process of variation.

Mukherjee’s works are artifacts of a philosophical quest shaped by many influences—the Hindu and Buddhist philosophies from his cultural upbringing; classical Indian music and dance, whose deep philosophical roots regard dance as the highest art form and origin of all of the arts; plus his discipline in astrophysics and the sciences—all funneled through a belief and practice that joy is a profound and fundamental aspect of being.

Many of the works in his studio were in process; several were pieces completed at an earlier date that Mukherjee was reworking. I asked the artist about this and how it fit into his aesthetic. “When certain works are returned to the studio, sometimes after years, I think to myself, ‘What if?’ Process and materiality concern not only the media I use, but myself and this body as well. We are always changing; our lives, the world, and this conversation I am having with you will become a part of who I am. When you leave, you will be changed; our conversation becomes a part of who you are. When I rework a piece, it is a reflection of this reality; it is a desire to fold and unfold the work again and infuse it with the present moment.” 

Sandeep Mukherjee, Detail - Intersecting, 2010-25, ink on duralene, Photo Gary Brewer

“Intersecting” (2010–2025), a large work on duralene that was originally in a horizontal format, had recently been returned. It is a complex and detailed image created using black ink that the artist carefully guided, using an air gun to blow the ink lines into intricate self-similar patterns, growing smaller and smaller in fractal-like designs. Control of the ink’s viscosity and the surface tension of the paper is masterful. The thickness and density along the top and bottom edges create a darker area. As the lines thin toward the middle, a subtle luminous gradient is achieved. When the work was returned, he divided it into a diptych and added a large translucent sphere of color, in a subdued chromatic gradient from an earthy green through a muted yellow to a clay red that allows the line work underneath to show through. On the top and bottom, arching bands of the same color gradients frame the sphere, suggesting an eye. 

I asked if his use of primary shapes, like the sphere, was connected in any way to Indian Tantric painting. “That is a part of my cultural history, so that is there, but I have been thinking about the sphere recently, what it is in the physical world. I see the form of the sphere as the ultimate effect of gravity on matter; it is a fundamental shape enforced by this mysterious force that shapes everything in the phenomenal world.” 

His freedom in the use of materials and the complex effects he achieves with simple techniques are magical. To touch the Earth and the heavens and bring a lifetime of experiences that continually shape and reshape his sensibility—and his very being—is an alchemical feat. Indeed, “the sun is new each day,” and each day is a different incarnation of self. The artworks of Sandeep Mukherjee mesmerize the senses and touch upon the reality that joy and beauty are fundamental to our existence, an eternal dance that can be felt through our senses and can awaken us to a love supreme. WM