Lot Essay
Anish Kapoor explores the fine line between subject matter and content in his work. His sculptures and watercolors seem to grow out of deep metaphysical recesses and he relies on abstraction and form to compose a quiet but moving mythology. Presence and absence here posses equal weight and he manipulates both negative space and translucency as an artist would the curve of an arm or the color of a night sky. His abstract forms are not without archetypes however, and his palette is drawn from the symbolism of Hindu mythology as well as the cosmic intonations of Neo-Tantra, which uses geometric shapes, such as the circle or bindu, to symbolize different elements of nature and spirituality. His watercolors delicately vary their saturation creating subtle undulating pools of color intended to soak up the action and attention of the viewer's eye. His works are often characterized as sublime and they touch upon ideas in Buddhism, quivering between being and non-being. Kapoor repeatedly returns to the same colors and surfaces in his work. "Colour can be oneiric," states Kapoor. "Red is a color I have worked with a lot. I work with red because it is the colour of the physical, of the earthly, of the bodily. I want to make body into sky. This is a fundamental transformation and somewhat mysterious." The interplay between these impalpable characteristics of his work, color, light, and negative space, are brilliantly used to address corporeal realities. ("Interview with Anish Kapoor," Tate Magazine, Issue 1, 2003, www.tate.org.uk/magazine/issue1/descent.htm)