Important Notice

Born in 1941, Rameshwar Broota began his artistic career as an academic portraitist, but soon turned to more stylized renderings of the figure to develop an idiom that has since evolved to remain attuned with his artistic vision. Deeply aware of and affected by socio-political developments, the primitive figuration that Broota developed over the course of his career explores pre-social existence, and the possibility of post-social man as a... Born in 1941, Rameshwar Broota began his artistic career as an academic portraitist, but soon turned to more stylized renderings of the figure to develop an idiom that has since evolved to remain attuned with his artistic vision. Deeply aware of and affected by socio-political developments, the primitive figuration that Broota developed over the course of his career explores pre-social existence, and the possibility of post-social man as a critique of economic and political corruption, and the excesses that cause it.

A new step in Broota's ongoing search for the nature of truth, the artist began painting a series of existential canvases in the 1980s that accelerated the process of paring his paintings of all that he deemed superfluous, including narrative and colour. In place of these elements, the artist concentrates on conveying the exact textural attributes of figures, objects and architectural elements, giving his works an almost sculpted presence.

In the present lot, the artist juxtaposes the sagging flesh of an aging male torso with the rigid lines of various pipes, underlining our vulnerabilities and the transient nature of our existence. As Gayatri Sinha notes, "Broota's central subject is man, through whose tensions and aspirations, lusts and endeavours, the greater issues of life are meditated. God is indifferent or distant, the human 'other' is absent; the solitary male becomes the site for conflict and resolution. Through repeated acts of resistance, the male body, with its skeletal frame or stolid musculature, plays out its postures of acceptance or confrontation" (Edge of the Precipice: The Art of Rameshwar Broota, Vadehra Art Gallery exhibition catalogue, 2001, p. 23-24).

Broota's unique method is testament to his finish. Using a technique he discovered whilst correcting a damaged painting, Broota builds up translucent layers of grey, blue, brown, black, or metallic pigments on his surface. Then, using a razor blade, the artist painstakingly scratches away at these layers to literally unearth his image. "The chromatic nuances resulting from the scratching, in spite of their austerity, can be mesmerizing. Broota's magical handling of myriad textures creates a brilliant impact. Broota achieves this through the variety of ways he wields the razor, sometimes to gouge out paint, at other times to employ linear strokes or fine cross-hatchings. The minute detail is a fascinating visual experience" (Ella Datta, "The Archaeology of Experience", Rameshwar Broota, Vadehra Art Gallery exhibition catalogue, 2004-05, p. 21).

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