Sculpting spontaneity

Manu Osho and Joseph Sherry are working together to break the stereotypes that differentiate art from everyday lives
Sculpting spontaneity

KOCHI: Joseph Sherry may not fit our conventional ideas of how an artist should look or be. His ideas and thoughts are eccentric and his works reflect his introspections and imaginations. At the garden in his house, he works with his artist friend Manu Osho to create sculptures and models out of scrap wood, waste and even dried roots.

One day, while on his way to a relative’s house, he found charred wood by the road. Sherry and Manu brought it home and made a crocodile and an Indian sea crow out of it, depicting the food cycle and how nature works. The crocodile is jumping out of a swamp created using loose soil and shaped green grass.

“When I go on walks or travel somewhere, I always find things that interest me. The spot where I picked up the charred wood was being used by people to burn waste. I stopped and inspected it, then went back a week later to carry it back home,” says Sherry. The duo has also created a leopard, one of the most beautiful predators of the jungle, using the remaining blackened wood. The leopard seems to be in motion, leaping to catch its prey.

“I met Sherry around two years back, just around the time Covid broke out in Kerala. Our ideas matched and we really hit it off. We soon started working together on some pieces at Sherry’s garden. He always finds new materials and will already have an idea of what to do with them. Then we discuss them. Most pieces have a backstory to it, something relevant to this time,” says Manu, an MFA graduate.

Now, Sherry’s yard beside Periyar has become a workstation as well as exhibition ground. The duo just finished one part of their latest work, a roaring lion. “The idea came to me when news about wild animals entering human habitats started emerging. As we destroy forests, we are also wrecking the homes of these animals and their food sources. So, they don’t have any other option but to enter our cities. What if, in future, lions, tigers have to live among us. Will they be tamed into becoming docile creatures?” asks Sherry, who is a former ward councillor from Pathalam near Eloor in Kochi. The second part of the installation will show a tamed lion, resting on its paws.

Their story

Sherry is a self-taught artist. Upon returning from the Gulf in 2008, he decided to build himself a home. He was involved with the designing and building of the house. “After watching the carpenters and architects work, I was inspired too. Soon, I started collecting everything from falling branches to roots, hoping to give them a creative twist,” he says.

Sherry started making his sculptors with the help of carpenters, learning the process on the go. That’s when he got the idea to collect a bull’s skull from a butcher to make a miniature of ‘Ochira Kala’. Sherry stored the skull at his home for a couple of years. It was washed away during the 2018 flood, only to be spotted again in the river. When he met Manu, it became their first project together.

While many still consider art an elitist idea, something reserved for intellectuals, people like Sherry and Manu are reducing that gap. They are also teaching us that if we have the mind for it, everything can be a creative force.

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