Important Notice

"After many long years of thinking and working, I find the mysteries are so great, so beyond human comprehension - that they defy the order of logic. So that I wonder if a system of logic exists, at all. Reasoning, order, logic. These are there at the beginning. These are the fundamental, elemental inquiries, which are indispensible. Thereafter you go to other levels - where logic is left behind."
- S H Raza

Triangles,... "After many long years of thinking and working, I find the mysteries are so great, so beyond human comprehension - that they defy the order of logic. So that I wonder if a system of logic exists, at all. Reasoning, order, logic. These are there at the beginning. These are the fundamental, elemental inquiries, which are indispensible. Thereafter you go to other levels - where logic is left behind."
- S H Raza

Triangles, composed of a sea of warm triangles of varying transparencies is among Raza's most successful experimentations with shape and colour. Over one hundred triangles are enclosed within a bright red border. Almost all the triangles pointing down are in colours that have been painted over in black while the triangles pointing up are comprised of Raza's signature warm colours. This creates a dichotomy present in much of Raza's work from the period, where structures move both out and in. The darker triangles direct the viewer's eye down the painting while the brighter triangles move the eye up, creating a timeless meditative space where inner and outer worlds converge. It is this juxtaposition of cubist formalities and transparencies of colour which give the painting a comprehensive sense of depth. As in most of Raza's work from this period, his signature Bindu is present within the geometric structure of his triangles.

The present lot, painted in 2000, was created almost exactly twenty years after Raza abandoned gestural abstraction for a more spiritual art created through formal abstractions which emulate nature. It was also during this time that Raza began to look towards Indian theology and spirituality to embed more significant meaning in his work. Raza manipulates the formal elements of art to place the viewer in a space which is orchestrated by the intensity of his vision of Nature. "Raza's continuing concern has been with Nature: with the elements of nature which govern time and space and infuse order into the universe. To express this concept, he resorts to the principals which govern pictorial language and which, in their turn, infuse order into the canvas.The vocabulary of the point, line, and diagonal, of the square, circle, and triangle become the essential components of his work." (Geeti Sen, Bindu: Space and Time in Raza's Vision, New Delhi: Media Transasia Ltd., 1997, p. 137)

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