Important Notice

"It took many long years before I could realise in successive stages of my development the real significance of the bindu as a primordial symbol of energy, the still centre or the seed. The concept has pursued me as a lode star, guiding me in life and my work as a painter, all through my life." - S H RAZA

The present lot, whose title translates as "nature," is composed of a predominantly red palette and distinct brushstrokes,... "It took many long years before I could realise in successive stages of my development the real significance of the bindu as a primordial symbol of energy, the still centre or the seed. The concept has pursued me as a lode star, guiding me in life and my work as a painter, all through my life." - S H RAZA

The present lot, whose title translates as "nature," is composed of a predominantly red palette and distinct brushstrokes, with a black circle or bindu in the lower half, reminiscent of a setting sun. In Hindu philosophy, the bindu is a metaphor for "the seed, bearing the potential of all life, in a sense... The black space is charged with latent forces aspiring for fulfillment. (Geeti Sen, Bindu: Space and Time in Raza's Vision, New Delhi: Media Transasia India Ltd, p. 134) Raza's interest in this leitmotif emerged from his preoccupation with formal order and geometry, as well as an exploration of nature and spirituality. Over many years, this symbol would manifest, evolve and come to signify ideas and concepts influenced by Raza's journey, beginning with his life in France before circling back to his Indian roots.

The inspiration for the bindu originally came from Raza's childhood in his native village in Madhya Pradesh, where one of his teachers, Nandlal Jharia, taught him how to focus on the significant and eliminate the peripheral by concentrating on a small black dot. This idea appeared in a few of his earlier works as a black sun looming in the background of a landscape, but it was only a few decades later, in the late 1970s and early 1980s, that the artist - then based in Paris - frequently travelled to India, and began to question the "Indianness" of his work. This period of travel and selfreflexivity ushered in a deeper engagement with forms, colours and philosophies rooted in his home country, and the bindu began to appear more frequently in his paintings. It became the focus of Raza's art as he transitioned from gestural works into geometric abstraction. Using this vocabulary, Raza alluded to nature - which always remained an integral part of his work - as well as Indian philosophical, spiritual and cosmological concepts.

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