Important Notice

Lot 100

 

Quick Zoom

Atul Dodiya’s work is recognised by its dynamic references to a plethora of subjects, ranging from comic strips, religion, advertisements and cinema, to Indian and international “high art”. His oeuvre negotiates his research and encounters with popular culture, presenting the viewer with a layered idiom. This idiomatic development owes much to Dodiya’s growth as an artist in the 1980s and 1990s when India was rapidly undergoing a number of... Atul Dodiya’s work is recognised by its dynamic references to a plethora of subjects, ranging from comic strips, religion, advertisements and cinema, to Indian and international “high art”. His oeuvre negotiates his research and encounters with popular culture, presenting the viewer with a layered idiom. This idiomatic development owes much to Dodiya’s growth as an artist in the 1980s and 1990s when India was rapidly undergoing a number of changes and opening up to the world.

Lots 99 and 100, are each indicative of Dodiya’s “personal language full of references to art history, literature, poetry and popular cinema - elements held together by an overarching interest in autobiography and national history.” (Amrita Jhaveri, A Guide to 101 Indian Contemporary Artists, Mumbai: India Book House, 2005, p. 28)

Lot 100, Vansha Vriksha is one of the few large works on paper that Dodiya painted on his return to India following a residency at Civitella Ranieri in Italy in 1999. In this large scale, almost monochromatic piece, the map of the nation is reduced to shadows, barely visible beneath an assemblage of tectonic plates that seem to be forming a new, highly divided map over the existing one. On closer examination, however, the spaces between these plates have joined up estuary-like to form a tree, emblematic of the nurtured bonds of family and culture that transcend such political divisions. In the same vein, the cleverly placed nest of eggs in one of the branches, and his signature rising sun, adopted from an illustrated children’s book, at the lower left of the piece stand for a new, optimistic future where such ruptures may be bridged.

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