At the age of Fifteen, British Art Director Sunil Pawar skipped school and walked into the recording studios of music legends Soul II Soul with a bagful of paintings, he sold all of them. Present day and art and music is still a very important aspect of his life. Profiled in the genre-defining book, Stencil Graffiti‘ in the 00s, his unique creative output is born from a strong foundation of DJ and Sound System culture.

“Echoing the working practice of Andy Warhol, Pawar’s studio output walks the line between commissioned agency /brand projects and gallery shows. A progressive studio practice that sees his creations inhabit a wide realm, pushing boundaries between design, painting, fashion and future facing technology“ alm

Sunil‘s works involve the exploration of the integral relationships between sound and the visual form. Growing up in North London, Sunil was exposed to the world of pirate radio at a young age, growing up surrounded by a blessed diet of hiphop, rare groove, soul and reggae at a time when these genres were being fused together creating a new amalgam of sound, that would be played in warehouse parties up and down the country.

For BLACK GOLD, this integral passion and love of music is celebrated in its truest form. The title of this body of work refers to the slang term used to describe a vinyl record. Mimicing the time honoured process of a DJ blending and mixing two records together on turntables to create a single sound, two painted representations of individual records are fused together into these dynamic composite artworks. The finger gestures of vinyl hip hop scratching and back cueing are all translated by Pawar with brush strokes and sprays

The initial series includes ten artworks, two vinyl reliefs spray painted and brushed on paper, composited together in digital post production, enlarged in dimension and printed on substrate where they are hand customised with spray, making each work unique. Each piece is named after a pivotal record from Pawar‘s DJ record collection over the years.

In addition, the viewer can interact with artwork digitally on-screen alongside audio, manipulating the visuals with a DJ controller or turntables with time coded vinyl though Midi protocol.

The records are played in the studio on a loop as the paintings are created, it is the artist‘s belief that the energy and spirits of sound seep into these visual manifestations, bringing everything full circle.

It starts with the bassline, and ends with the bassline.