I explore how everything in the cosmos transforms yet stays connected, merging science, philosophy, and culture through digital and physical tools to reflect the universe’s endless cycle of change.
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suresh babu maddilety
Hyderabad, India
Biography
Suresh Babu Maddilety (b.1971, India) is a Hyderabad-based multidisciplinary artist whose practice spans painting, digital collage, video, photography, sound, text, and found materials. His work explores matter in continuous transformation, treating substances such as municipal water, dust, soil, pigments, and digital pixels as living processes rather than fixed materials. Maddilety’s practice brings together scientific cosmology, perceptual experience, and material behaviour, often drawing from Conformal Cyclic Cosmology (CCC) to reflect how microscopic events echo larger cosmic cycles.
Across his practice, he examines how objects, images, and elements shift state, forming dynamic surfaces and structures that pulse, dissolve, fracture, or reassemble. His works explore the fluid boundaries between the man-made and the natural, the tangible and the immaterial, the everyday and the cosmic. Through these transformations, he investigates how instability and transition shape our perception of time, memory, and existence.
Internationally recognized, Maddilety has been a finalist in several major global art awards, including Ars Electronica (2021), the ArtSlant Prize (2018), and the Arte Laguna Prize (2015), alongside exhibitions and screenings in India and abroad. He earned his BFA and MFA in Hyderabad (1998), where he remains based. Maddilety continues to develop experimental visual languages that connect material transitions, perceptual shifts, and cosmological thinking within a contemporary art framework.
Artist Statement
I am a multidisciplinary artist whose practice explores matter in continuous transformation. Working with painting, digital collage, video, photography, sound, and found materials, I treat every substance—from municipal water, dust, soil, and pigments to digital pixels and everyday detritus—as a living process rather than a fixed material. My work begins where objects, images, and elements shift state, revealing the invisible transitions that shape our perception of time and the world around us.
A central influence in my practice is Conformal Cyclic Cosmology (CCC), a theory proposing that the universe unfolds through infinite cycles of dissolution and rebirth. I bring this cosmological idea into the realm of daily experience by examining how a drop of water, a flicker of light, a fragment of debris, or a single pixel already carries within it the logic of cosmic cycles. In my work, the microscopic and the cosmic mirror one another through patterns of collapse, re-formation, and continual motion.
Visually, my works form dynamic surfaces—layers that pulse, blur, fracture, or reassemble. Paintings allow man-made objects to evolve into hybrid forms; digital collages reconstruct galaxies from fragmented imagery; and video works such as SociaLiquids reveal materials merging into new substances. These shifting structures invite viewers to experience instability not as destruction, but as the natural rhythm through which matter persists.
My intention is to collapse conventional scales and disrupt the assumption of permanence. Each work functions as an experiment: a rehearsal for change. I want viewers to sense the underlying continuity that links the dust beneath our feet to the cycles of the universe, opening a space to contemplate transformation as the fundamental condition of existence.
Artwork Descriptions
1. Social Liquids
2. Universe Constructivism
3. Microscopicism
4. Pronouncism
5. Found the Space for Art
6. Man-made objective art
1. Social Liquids
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artist: Suresh Babu Maddilety, title: social liquid 01, medium: video, year: 2014.
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artist: Suresh Babu Maddilety, title: socail liquid 2, medium: video, year:2022.
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artist: Suresh Babu Maddilety, title: social liquid 3, medium: video, year: 2015.
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artist: Suresh Babu Maddilety, title: icmfspbpce, medium: video, year:2022.
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artist: Suresh Babu Maddilety, title: mjphcopcftcb, medium;video, year:2017.
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artist: Suresh Babu Maddilety, title: 6edsncfetgfsmpmh, medium: video, year:2019.
Social Liquids is an ongoing video series (2015–2025) that examines how matter reorganizes itself when diverse substances meet. Using municipal water, organic residues, household liquids, powders, and pigments, each work captures spontaneous reactions that generate new hybrid states. The videos function as focused observations of material behaviour—how liquids merge, resist, dissolve, or re-form through simple acts of mixing.
The series carries a gentle influence from scientific observation and early, everyday exposure to practical material mixing, which shaped my intuitive approach to experimentation. These small reactions subtly reflect the broader cosmological ideas within my practice, particularly the cycles of transition described in Conformal Cyclic Cosmology (CCC), where matter continually shifts between states.
By engaging materials that are often overlooked or unstable, Social Liquids challenges assumptions about value and artistic legitimacy. Rather than presenting a final outcome, the videos frame transformation itself as the artwork—ephemeral processes that invite viewers to witness instability not as contamination, but as the fundamental rhythm through which matter persists.
2. Universe Constructivism
Universe Constructivism transforms NASA galaxy photographs into new visual narratives through digital collage. Using Adobe Photoshop, Maddilety works with individual celestial fragments—each functioning as a discrete visual unit—to construct imagined terrains, such as the house in Universe Constructivism 01 or the mountain-and-lake formation in Universe Constructivism 02. Galaxies, nebulae, and stellar textures become the compositional elements from which alternative cosmic worlds are built.
Inspired by the 1960s Land Art Movement, where artists shaped physical landscapes using earth and stone, Maddilety reinterprets that impulse in a digital realm. Instead of altering land, he arranges astronomical imagery to create speculative cosmic architectures, proposing the possibility of a future “Galaxy Art Movement,” where cosmic data becomes an artistic medium.
The works evoke a sense of cosmic vastness and expanded temporality, opening space for imagined aeons as well as new scientific and artistic possibilities. Through the meticulous gathering and layering of galaxy fragments, Universe Constructivism reveals how celestial material can be reconfigured into evolving visual worlds—inviting viewers to encounter the universe as a constructed, ever-transforming terrain.
3. Microscopicism
Microscopicism is a research-based conceptual project that explores how the smallest structures of matter can be reimagined as visual forms. The project begins by isolating individual microscopic units—cell fragments, molecular diagrams, atomic models—which function as discrete visual elements. These elements are then combined to form expanded conceptual systems, allowing minute structures to operate as the basis for new artistic compositions. This movement from micro to macro echoes broader ideas of continual transformation that inform Maddilety’s practice.
Inspired by scientific imaging yet departing from its strict procedures, Maddilety examines how the unseen material world shapes the functioning of bodies, ecosystems, and the universe. While scientists interpret these structures through measurement and analysis, he approaches them visually, translating microscopic forms into perceptible images that can be experienced without instruments.
Microscopicism ultimately seeks to make invisible processes—such as photosynthesis, cell cycles, or atomic interactions—accessible as artistic phenomena. By revealing how microscopic elements assemble into larger patterns, the project invites viewers to consider how the smallest units of matter can generate new modes of perception and future possibilities for artistic research.
4. Pronouncism
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title: Pronouncism 01- 01 medium: video year; 2023
Pronouncism is a video artwork that combines audio, video, and text elements. In the video, we hear an AI software’s voice pronouncing made-up words typed by the artist. Using the Telugu alphabet, native to Andhra Pradesh in South India and Maddilety’s mother tongue, the artist randomly typed letters in translation.Google app, allowing the software to vocalise them and record screen capture software. The resulting words are absurd.
Pronouncism opens up a discussion on our unique routes of thought and how we use our languages, challenging the significance of pronunciation and questioning the meaning we assign to specific sounds and words. Inspired by text art, Maddilety explores the concept of using linguistic elements, asking why we use words from language in text art but not the pronouns from abstract words.
5. Found the Space for Art
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artist: Suresh Babu Maddilety, title: art in the moon, Medium: video, Year: 2024.
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artist: Suresh babu maddilety, title: art in the sun, medium:video, year:2024
“Art in the Moon” and “Art in the Sun” are video artworks created using Windows 3D software, and I use screen capture software to record live digital drawings, allowing me to create movement as I envision it. These recordings are then edited and compiled into video works, documenting both the process and transformation of the piece, part of the series “Found the Space for Art.” This series explores the concept of creating art within found objects, such as rocks, mountains, the Sun, the Galaxy, or even the human body. In this video, the Moon and the sun serve as the backdrop. Maddilety embeds art within physical matter, and unexpected places like mountains, celestial objects, as a form of artists’ experimentation. The drawing itself is not significant; rather, it is the exploration and potential of these new spaces that matter.
Inspired by the idea of an empty canvas, Madilety visualizes new spaces for artistic experimentation, questioning, and challenging traditional surfaces and visual representation processes. He questions the conventional use of surfaces like canvas, likening his approach to graffiti artists who seek unexpected locations. However, Madilety goes further by proposing experimental and innovative techniques to embed his art within found objects. His work takes viewers on a journey through his interest in the future, philosophy, and science.
6. Man-made objective art
wine bottle
size: 24x24 inches-medium: acrylic colors year: 2023.___________ In the Man-made Objective Art universe, the wine bottle acts like an atom—its wine drops falling like atomic particles. These wine drops spark the growth of a grape tree without connection, in contrast to our world where trees grow from seeds. Each wine drop serves as an independent catalyst for transformation, which is why the wine bottle is depicted in isolation.
from cement
size: 24x24 inches-medium: acrylic colors year: 2022_____________In this concept, cement is reversed as the origin of the tree. The tree behaves like cement, solid and structured, defying natural processes. This reimagining reflects the idea that trees, traditionally born from soil, can instead emerge from an unnatural, solid foundation. The tree's behavior mirrors the rigidity of cement, blending the organic and the constructed in a continuous cycle of transformation.
chair
size: 24x24 inches-medium: acrylic colors year: 2024_______________ In this conceptual universe, the color of the tree originates from the chair, with the trees' coloration behaving like the chair itself. However, since this transformation takes place without direct connection, the trees are not visible. This is why the chair is depicted in isolation, representing the source of the trees' color.
from pollution
size: 20x20inches-medium: acrylic colors year: 2023___________In this concept, pollution is reversed as the origin of the flower. Just as a flower grows from the earth, the flower emerges from the byproducts of pollution. This idea transforms the concept of environmental decay into one of rebirth and creation. By reversing natural processes, pollution becomes the seed from which new life, symbolized by the flower, originates.
from makeup
size:25x25inches-medium:acrylic colors yaer:2023____________In the "Man-made Objective Art" concept, makeup is reversed as the origin of the woman. Just as a seed gives birth to a tree, makeup acts as the starting point, from which the woman emerges. This concept mirrors the idea of a unicellular organism giving rise to a complex form of life. By reversing natural processes, makeup becomes the fundamental element.
from the cable
size:20x20 inches medium: acrylic colors year: 2024___________In this concept, the cable is reversed as the origin of birds, even the sky itself. From the cable, birds emerge, shaping the sky around them. The birds' forms and expressions echo the structure of the cable, blending the artificial with the natural. By reversing natural processes, the cable becomes the source from which life and its surroundings take flight.
bullock cart
size: 24x24 inches-medium: acrylic colors year: 2023_________In this conceptual reversal, the cow originates from the cart. The cow adopts cart-like qualities, and even its surroundings echo the character of the cart.
flower vase
size: 28x24 inches-medium: acrylic colors year: 2024_________From the flower vase, plants originate. From the tap, water emerges. From the boat, trees, mountains, and even the sun take form. The surrounding environment behaves like a fusion of various man-made objects. This is a reverse interplay, where creation follows an inverted process.
new suns
size: 24x24 inches-medium: acrylic colors year: 2024____________From a matchstick, suns originate—along with plants and trees. The surroundings take on the essence of a matchstick, though they remain unseen, existing only in the imagination. Here, multiple suns emerge, reversing the natural order and reshaping perception.
from the camara
size:24x24inches-medium: acrylic-colors year:2024__________________In this concept, the camera is reversed as the origin of the landscape. From the lens, mountains, trees, and ponds emerge, creating a vivid natural scene. Just as a camera captures the world, it is reimagined as the source of nature itself. By reversing natural processes, the camera becomes the starting point from which landscapes are formed.
replace with new mountains
size:25x25 medima: acrylic-colors-year:2025_____________If something breaks, we replace it with something new. Similarly, I removed the old mountains and replaced them with new ones, even creating a new atmosphere by removing the old one.
table
size:22x22 medium:acrylic colors year:2024____________In this concept, the table is reversed as the origin of tree trunks, even the earth itself. From the surface of the table, tree trunks rise and the earth is formed, symbolizing a reimagined natural order. Just as a table is a man-made object, it becomes the foundation for the growth of nature. By reversing natural processes, the table becomes the seed from which the natural world emerges.
to be assembled
siz: 25x25inches medium: acrylic colors year:2025___________In our world, making a table involves separately creating and assembling its parts. In the "Man-made objective art" universe, the table is the fundamental unit, and trees grow metaphorically from it, without the natural order of stems, branches, and leaves. Here, creating a real tree means assembling parts in a nonlinear fashion, like constructing a table.
umbarilla
size"25x25inches-medim: acrylic colors year:2024________________In the "Man-made objective art" universe, the umbrella fundamental unit generates clouds and rain, unlike in our world, where atmospheric changes drive these phenomena. Here, the umbrella acts like atoms, forming clouds and rain without direct interaction, which is why it’s depicted in isolation.
walls
size:20x20inches medium:acrylic colors year:2023___________Everything originates from compound walls—trees, flowers, earth, air, and even the atmosphere. The atmosphere itself takes on the form and essence of compound walls, blurring the line between the natural and the constructed.
electric-poles
size:25x25 medium:acrylic colors year:2025______________In this concept, electric poles are reversed as the origin of the entire environment. From the poles emerge land, mountains, water, plants, trees, flowers, air, and even the sky, forming the whole atmosphere. The environment itself behaves like electric poles, though it remains unseen, existing only in the imagination. By reversing natural processes, the poles become the source from which all elements of life and nature originate, reshaping perception and creation.
the sun is landing
size: 24x24 inches-medium: acrylic colors year: 2023____________The sun serves as a metaphor for an airplane. Here, the sun originates from an airplane and takes on its behavior—moving, flying, and landing. Even the surroundings adopt the qualities of an airplane, with the air itself moving like an aircraft. However, these transformations remain unseen, existing only in the realm of imagination, evoking a metaphysical experience.
bus
medium:Acrylic on Canvas size:25x25inc year:2025____________From the bus’s windows, the sky and trees originate, extending even to the surroundings. The isolated bus also gives birth to humans from its seats, yet this occurs without direct connection—beyond the painting itself. Here, the painting is not confined within the frame; it expands into universal space, evoking a metaphysical experience.
objective rain
size: 25x25 inches-medium: acrylic colors year: 2025___________Rain originates from an umbrella, which exists beyond the painting in its original horizontal position. The rain itself also falls horizontally. The surroundings take on the qualities of an umbrella, yet this transformation is a metaphysical experience, extending beyond the visible.
wine bottle and glass
medium:Acrylic on Canvas size:20x19inc year:2025___________In this concept, the wine bottle and glass function like atoms, while the wine itself represents the electron. Unlike in traditional atomic structures where electrons orbit the proton, here the roles are reversed—the proton moves around the electrons. This inversion highlights a unique set of physical laws, reimagining fundamental interactions in a new reality.
ponds
medium:Acrylic on Canvas size: 20x19inc year:2024______________In this concept, the boat generates ponds, but the ponds resemble the materials of the boat itself. The surroundings adopt the qualities of a boat, yet this transformation exists beyond the visible realm. It is a metaphysical experience, where form and function reverse, challenging perceptions of origin and materiality.
no one created village
medium: Acrylic on Canvas size: 20x19inc year: 2025_____________In the "Man-made Objective Art" universe, the village takes the place of atoms as the fundamental unit. Unlike our world, where atoms form everything and even exist independently, this village was not created but emerged on its own.
boat river
size: 20x20 inches-medium: acrylic colors year: 2023_____________In this concept, the boat generates the river, yet the river takes on the form of the boat. The boat exists both within and beyond the painting, extending into an imagined space. This reversal of origin transforms the river into a metaphysical extension of the boat itself.
from brick
size: 24x24 inches-medium: acrylic colors year: 2022_____________A brick generates a tree, with its trunk shaped like a brick wall. The surroundings absorb the essence of the brick, yet this transformation remains unseen, existing as a metaphysical experience beyond the painting.
creating sky
size: 22x22 inches-medium: acrylic colors year: 2022_______________A ladder generates the sky and space, but there is no land or stars, as it embodies the abstract behavior of the ladder. This unique space, unlike our natural world, is a metaphysical experience.
creating canvas world
size: 24x24 inches-medium: acrylic colors year: 2021____________The canvas painting generates land, sky, water, and atmosphere, shaping reality rather than depicting it. Surroundings take on the essence of the painted forms, extending into a metaphysical experience where creation and perception merge.
Man-made objective art is a series of 30 colourful and bright paintings on square canvases, created between 2019 and 2023. Inspired by the philosophy of “materialism,” where abstract matter is primary, and nature and man-made objects are secondary, Maddilety’s Man-made objective art redefines creations.
If we go in-depth about materialism, the primary matter is built by atoms. Maddilety’s concept of Man-made objective art redefines creation, envisioning man-made objects as fundamental units akin to atoms. In his art, he reverses natural processes, crafting trees from tables and vines from wine drops. These works question function—if a wine glass no longer holds wine, is it still a wine glass? He invites viewers to see everyday objects as sites of transformation.
His process starts with painting man-made objects and then layering nature around them. Single-angle objects and acrylic bright colours heighten perception, while unseen transformations evoke a metaphysical experience. He believes these paintings are like drafts, and in the future, they will be brought to life through quantum technology or nature will bring them to life on its own.
CV
SURESH BABU MADDILETY
Born 1971, Medukurthi, Andhra Pradesh, India.
Lives and works in Hyderabad.
https://artsted.com/profile/portfolio
EDUCATION:
Graduation: 1986-1992; B.F.A J.N.T.U. College of fine arts, Hyderabad.
Post-Graduation: 1996-1998; M.F.A University of Hyderabad.
FINALIST:
Captive Portal, Kiosque de l’In-visible, Copenhagen, 2025, Denmark.
RevArt Global, 404://ART, California, 2025, US.
NEULAND Gallery video screening in Bochum, 2024-Germany.
U.S. Consulate General Hyderabad on India-US Space Cooperation contest 2024
Special prize winner, Mellow Art Award 2021
For video work in IAR International Artist Residency 2020- Napoli (Italy).
For installation work in YICCA Art contest 2017/2018 – Milan (Italy).
1st 2018 Art Slant Prize juried winner, USA.
For installation work in YICCA Art contest 2017- Rome (Italy).
For installation work in Art Laguna Prize 2015- Venice (Italy).
For installation work in Premio Combat Prize2015- Livorno (Italy).
SELECTED FOR ART FESTIVALS:
Goes:Art, On Screen festival 2024, Vienna, Austria.
The Ars Electronica Festival 2021, Austria.
Festival DeSidera 2021, Italy.
ARTISTS SELECTION FIRST PHASE:
Air Land 3.0 INSIDE LAND organized by the Quasi Quadro association, 2020, Turin (Italy).
AWARDS:
47th All India Art exhibition by the Hyderabad art society, 1988.
ONE MAN SHOW:
On 13th Sep 1998, at C.I.E.F.L, Hyderabad.
GROUP SHOWS:
Captive Portal, Kiosque de l’In-visible, Copenhagen, 2025, Denmark.
RevArt Global, 404://ART, California, 2025, US.
The Dalí’s Surprisingly Surreal Photo Contest Online Exhibit 2025, The Dalí Museum in St. Petersburg, FL, US.
MOTILE ART the 4th International Online Art Exhibition 2024, India.
CISTA ARTS online group show Metamorphosis: Exploring Transformation Through Art, online group show 2024, London.
ICAC art gallery group show, 2022, Ahmedabad, India.
Round Lemon international online show2021- UK.
PITCH collective video mapping, 2021- Russia.
Finalists Exhibition -YICCA Art contest 2017/18- Milan (Italy).
Finalists Exhibition – YICCA Art contest 2017/- Rome (Italy).
Finalists Exhibition – Art Laguna Prize 2015 -Venice (Italy).
Finalists Exhibition – Premio Combat Prize 2015- Livorno (Italy).
International Gallery Of The Arts (IGOA). online exhibition 2017.
ARTIST IN RESIDENCY:
Artist Residency Programme By Kerala Lalit Kala Academy, 2017, India.
PUBLICATION:
Abirpothi, India’s only daily art newspaper, 09/10/2024, 2024.
Artists of the Month, October 2021, Wendy.network.
Artist profiles, May 1918, ArtSlant.
Wotisart Magazine,12th August 2017.
ART Habens, 1916.
EXHIBITION PARTICIPATION:
J.N.T.U. College of Fine Arts Annual Exhibitions;
1988,1989,1990,1991.
All India Art Exhibitions, The Hyderabad Art Society;1988,1989,1990,1991,1992,1993,1994.
P.S. Telugu University Exhibition of Art, Hyderabad; 1997.
ARTIST CAMPS: Andhra Pradesh Young Artists Camp by A.P. Govt., 1997,1998,1999,2000
Maddilety's Artistic Process and Positioning in Contemporary Discourse
Maddilety’s art, rooted in a cyclic view of the universe, weaves everyday objects into a single continuum, using both digital and physical media to explore time and transformation. His process begins with observing enduring elements, tracing their cyclical evolution, and merging tangible and virtual forms. Shaped by external forces, the works flow like a river—inviting meditative reflection on cosmic continuity. Unlike James Turrell, Anselm Kiefer, Odilon Redon, Alex Grey, or Mariko Mori, who traverse multiversal or transcendental dimensions, Maddilety’s grounded cycles align digital hybridity with spiritual inquiry, remaining distinct in their focus on one universe and its endless, fluid transformation.