Hema Upadhyay
(1972 - 2015)
Bleeding Hearts
Combining performance with painting, the personal with the political, Hema Upadhyay’s works raise issues of loss, disenchantment and dislocation in modern urban life, and, more generally, questions of security and survival in today’s violent world. Moving from Baroda, where she was born in 1972, to the massive conurbation of Mumbai, these are issues that the artist has encountered herself, lending a note of autobiography to her work....
Combining performance with painting, the personal with the political, Hema Upadhyay’s works raise issues of loss, disenchantment and dislocation in modern urban life, and, more generally, questions of security and survival in today’s violent world. Moving from Baroda, where she was born in 1972, to the massive conurbation of Mumbai, these are issues that the artist has encountered herself, lending a note of autobiography to her work.
Explaining the disarticulation she experienced on moving to Mumbai, Upadhyay says, “The city was just too difficult to grasp. It looked so easy from the outside. But once I became a part of it, the process of wanting to be accepted, needing to understand the body language and attitudes of the People and the City and dealing with the often-hostile environment. There was a fear of rejection. A fact every migrant has to face” (as quoted in Amrita Gupta Singh, “Can Flowers Say it All?”, Artconcerns.com, 2006, www.artconcerns.net).
The artist’s Bleeding Hearts series of works is part of her response to violence, both political and domestic, and its aftermath. In these large works on paper, the artist questions the value of flippant apologies, and whether the deep hurt and wounds caused by such violence can ever be erased, particularly by decorative or showy flourishes. In the background of these works, “…beneath the surface are the drips which represent blood but the beauty of the flowers hide it, and then you have hands sticking out of the bouquet which are like either apologizing or accepting their role with the act of violence. Bleeding Hearts deals with the subtlest forms of mishaps or acts of violence. (Stuff we can easily ignore)” (Ibid.).
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Lot
30
of
85
SUMMER AUCTION 2009
10-11 JUNE 2009
Estimate
Rs 10,00,000 - 12,00,000
$21,280 - 25,535
Winning Bid
Rs 15,13,400
$32,200
(Inclusive of Buyer's Premium)
ARTWORK DETAILS
Hema Upadhyay
Bleeding Hearts
Signed and dated in English (verso)
2005
Gouache, arcylic, dry pastels, and photograph on paper
71 x 43.5 in (180.3 x 110.5 cm)
Category: Painting
Style: Still Life
ARTWORK SIZE:
Height of Figure: 6'