Important Notice

Drawing their material from the parallel worlds of lived experience, memories and dreams, "Gopikrishna's paintings invoke the fantastic and the macabre. His works are an invitation for a guided tour into a world of happenings that take place in the twilight zone of the unconscious and the libidinal. Strongly reminiscent of the works of Hieronymus Bosch and surrealist like Max Ernst in temperament, Gopikrishna's approach brings forth a naiveté... Drawing their material from the parallel worlds of lived experience, memories and dreams, "Gopikrishna's paintings invoke the fantastic and the macabre. His works are an invitation for a guided tour into a world of happenings that take place in the twilight zone of the unconscious and the libidinal. Strongly reminiscent of the works of Hieronymus Bosch and surrealist like Max Ernst in temperament, Gopikrishna's approach brings forth a naiveté that is refreshing and penetrating at the same time" (Arshiya Lokhandwala, Exile and Longing: Emerging Art Practices from Kerala, Lakeeren Art Gallery exhibition catalogue, 2000, unpaginated).

In Gopikrishna's large canvases like the present lot, "The action is often placed in settings that would suggest a Kerala landscape, the state of Gopi's birth and present habitation. In the painting Frog Catchers of Udiyankulangara, the artist delves into his own personal reservoir of memories of Kerala. In the painting a man sits by the side of a lotus-filled pond holding aloft a lascivious looking frog; to his side is a bag filled to bursting with other caught amphibians. In the background a couple of frog catchers laze around under the midday sun (one of whom is a self portrait), whilst in a typically Gopi-esque flourish, an ascetic hangs upside-down from a tree in a state of penance. Here the title of the painting refers to his mother's native village in South-East Kerala; its literal translation is ‘the shore of the sunrise pond'" (Mortimer Chatterjee, Dream Conservatory, Art Musings exhibition catalogue, Mumbai, 2007, unpaginated). According to the artist, the melancholy nature of the characters and the feeling of loss that permeates this piece are tied to his memories of his mother, her family and their ancestral home in Udiyankulangara.

Read More
Artist Profile
Other works of this artist in: this auction  |  entire site