Important Notice

Nataraj Sharma’s move from Bangalore to Vadodara in the 1990s, signaled a major change in the direction of his work. Inspired by the city, he was initially drawn to the bleak industrial landscape of its fringes. These scenes had a profound effect on the artist’s work - turning away from figuration and canvases that examined the human condition in urban environments, Sharma’s paintings were now populated by images of factories, machines, and the... Nataraj Sharma’s move from Bangalore to Vadodara in the 1990s, signaled a major change in the direction of his work. Inspired by the city, he was initially drawn to the bleak industrial landscape of its fringes. These scenes had a profound effect on the artist’s work - turning away from figuration and canvases that examined the human condition in urban environments, Sharma’s paintings were now populated by images of factories, machines, and the parched lands they stood on.

Explaining this transformation, the artist says, “Moving to the outskirts of this city in Western India, I was confronted with a primal, elemental landscape dotted by factories that looked extremely desolate in the summer. The world might be at the forefront of technology but for us these outdated factories and chunky machines are an everyday reality…I want to seek the peculiar beauty of these desolate structures. Their permanence is comforting” (excerpt from an interview, Real in Realism, Vadehra Art Gallery, 2002).

Although he uses formal principles of painting to construct and light his works, Sharma mixes and matches various mechanical and industrial images that he sketches and photographs to create what he calls a “composite industrial structure, a fantastic one” (Ibid.). In the present lot, a row of smokestacks sits atop an uninviting factory, whose slat-like windows are bordered by walls that seem to be composed of machine parts. With no signs of human life, the factory takes on the presence of a mechanical being composed of cogs and levers, standing alone and supreme in its production.

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