Important Notice

Sudhir Patwardhan's works, particularly his large-format canvases like the present lot, carry forward the simultaneously intimate and complex relationship that he has shared with his city, Mumbai, for several decades now. Today, Mumbai and its suburban sister, Thane, where the self-taught artist resides, form one of the largest, most congested, and certainly most contradictory conurbations in the world. As fellow Mumbai artist, Jitish Kallat,... Sudhir Patwardhan's works, particularly his large-format canvases like the present lot, carry forward the simultaneously intimate and complex relationship that he has shared with his city, Mumbai, for several decades now. Today, Mumbai and its suburban sister, Thane, where the self-taught artist resides, form one of the largest, most congested, and certainly most contradictory conurbations in the world. As fellow Mumbai artist, Jitish Kallat, explains, it is "…at once dynamic and dysfunctional…a heady hodgepodge of languages, castes, religions and class difference. Life in the gargantuan metropolis goes on, precariously balancing commerce and corruption, affluence and abject poverty, swelling real estate prices and rampant homelessness" (Citing the City, Sakshi Gallery exhibition catalogue, 2007-08, p. 6).

The present lot, like many of the artist's other paintings, draws from his collection of photographic images taken at various time and in various locations across the city. "These references then cross- pollinate once the painting gets underway. Often specific areas in the city would dissolve and merge with localities lying kilometers apart, as if the grinding nine-to-five pursuit and the shared aspirations of their residents makes distance obsolete, inscribing the idea of a shared universe" (Ibid.).

In this monumental diptych, "The collapsing overbridge in the top-half of the painting comes from around Masjid station while right at the bottom is the suburb of Bhandup. The blue building on the right is from Byculla. Of the two flyovers seen in the painting, on is the J.J. flyover while the other is the flyover at Parel. They probably run into each other around the central dividing line of the diptych somewhere behind the green mosque that holds the pictorial construction together. The pictorial space, disintegrating and yet holding up, becomes a metaphor for this riot-prone, disaster-prone megalopolis that still continues to harbour optimism. What is interesting is that this superstructure of a distorted crumbling city holds up no spectacular activity as a pretext for its making. Small vendors go about their daily chores even as people cross bridges, chat, take a breather in between a day of hectic activity" (Ibid., p. 6, 7).

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