Important Notice

“People have responded in various ways to my works; some have found them abstract, others literary. Still others have found them decorative, witty, sensuous, satirical, celebrative, misogynic, I do not always agree. But I do not brush them aside either. Who knows? You may probably get a glimpse of what you have not noticed about yourself in a sensitive viewer’s mirror” (as quoted in E. Alkazi, “The Artist’s Dialogue with a Teacher”, K.G.... “People have responded in various ways to my works; some have found them abstract, others literary. Still others have found them decorative, witty, sensuous, satirical, celebrative, misogynic, I do not always agree. But I do not brush them aside either. Who knows? You may probably get a glimpse of what you have not noticed about yourself in a sensitive viewer’s mirror” (as quoted in E. Alkazi, “The Artist’s Dialogue with a Teacher”, K.G. Subramanyan, Art Heritage, March 2006, p. 4).

In the present lot, a large format canvas titled The Visitor, the viewer can clearly see the artist’s portrayal of Lord Shiva in the form of trimukha – the guardian of the three worlds – at the left edge of the frame. Protecting mankind from the grasp of evil, in Subramanyan’s pictorial narrative, Shiva appears to have a mask-like countenance, perhaps a disguise to enable him entry into forbidden worlds. “In this painting Subramanyan uses the colours of the earth, images of animal skins and the trees to create a dense visual field. The Visitor seems to refer to the iconography of Shiva who appears here with the three faces of a trimukha, a snake, suspended from his right shoulder. The fact that the face is rendered like a mask adds to the piquant quality of the painting. Shiva's conventional seat, the hide of the spotted deer appears in different parts of the painting. This work is typical of Subramanyan’s involvement with myth, his ability to rework it for his own purposes. It also demonstrates what he calls the bahurupee or disguise in play ‘mixing the normal with the hieratic’, the human with the mythic, the world of play and the imagination” (Gayatri Sinha, Jiva – Life: Contemporary Indian Art, Bodhi Art exhibition catalogue, Singapore, 2004, p.46).

The artist’s feather-like brush strokes and carefully chosen subdued palette compliment his fantastical yet symbolic imagery. “Subramanyan’s control of linear, colouristic and structural energy has an almost startling vitality, which enables the work to reach out perceptually and affect emotively. Leaving room in an image choked world for humour, pathos, irony, poetics and dreams, his stories and scenes, both tacit and apparent, engage one at the level of comprehension, allusion and allegory. Their sensations of pictorial energy declare the positive and the compelling power of creative intellect and imagination” (Kamala Kapoor, K.G. Subramanyan: Recent Works, The Guild Art Gallery exhibition catalogue, 2003, not paginated).

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