Kumkum Fernando is an artist based in Vietnam who creates sculptures that blend Asian cultural and spiritual elements with futuristic designs. He repurposes found materials into vibrant objects that evoke mythology and storytelling. The sculptures are accompanied by poems referencing Kumkum's grandmother's folktales. One work depicts Manike, a mad mother figure driven to madness by mosquitoes and the loss of her muse, who transforms into a menacing maniac.

1. Kumkum Fernando

2. Thousands of years of Sri
Lankan culture inform
Kumkum’s art, from ornate
temple paintings to folktales
of portals that connect us to a
vast underworld of gods,
giants and demons.
From his home base in
Vietnam, Kumkum and his
team scours the streets for
found materials to reanimate
into art objects.

3. The Reborn series flowered
from this practice, repurposing
traditional aesthetics to
produce futuristic, geometric
sculptures.
Equal parts action figures and
idols, these vibrant deities
evoke a unique spiritualism,
mythology, and philosophy.

4. Every sculpture is
accompanied by a poem; a
homage to the storytelling of
Kumkum’s grandmother,
shared with him as a child in
her beloved gardens.

5. https://kumkumfernando.com/

6. Manike the Maniac
The mad mother of Maya,
driven to madness by the
muttering mosquitoes and
the disappearance of her
muse, finds herself
momentarily transformed
into Manike, an
unstoppable and
menacing maniac.

8. Koha
With the promise to meet again at
the edge of the cosmos
He travels with dreams of eating
hyperbolic creamed ice
with the green eyed Izah,
The Koha keeps searching
against impossible odds
to find the shooting star girl,
he once met
Princess Izah 281

10. Soft Boss
Known as the most
badass boss with a soft,
sentimental side,
don’t you dare ask him
why sunsets
sometimes make him
cry or why Izah is
always on his mind.

13. Ilo, Ilo.
This time I gave you a jet pack
so we can meet much sooner.
Meet me by the edge of the
milky way.
Don’t be late.
The first Ilo never had a jet pack
so we couldn’t meet as planned.

18. She told me once that if
she didn’t look at her
self
she wouldn’t know who
she was.
It’s only a few million
years later and
I realized she wasn’t
talking of her looks.

22. Flower shooter,
space glider,
the star-eyed girl
from 61.
Fully loaded,
don’t mess with
my Grandma named her
Rosy Anne.

26. It's been 27 thousand
years.
Every day as the 9
moons rise,
same time, same place,
he sends her a message
out of space:
Do you read me? Do
you read me?
Do you read me? 113, it
says.

31. https://www.designboom.com/art/interview-kumkum-fernando-coachella-gigantic-robot-gods-asian-cultural-elements-04-21-2023/