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Lot Essay
Born and raised in India, Natvar Bhavsar arrived in the United States in 1962 to further his art education. After graduating with a Master’s degree, the artist was awarded a John D. Rockefeller III Fund fellowship and moved to New York. In the mid-1960s, the city’s thriving art scene was dominated by Pop Art and Minimalism. It was in this milieu that Bhavsar’s artistic practice matured, and he developed his original visual vocabulary. His practice combined elements of Color Field painting and Abstract Expressionism with a commitment to a meticulous process and his Indian heritage. Confident in his aesthetic, he is one of the most innovative colorists in the world of American contemporary art and remains an active member of New York’s artistic community.
Fundamental to Bhavsar’s visual language are his childhood experiences in India and those he had as a young artist in New York. His paintings reveal the deep-rooted significance of color in Indian life. Bhavsar’s mother came from a textile printing family, and as a child he played among vats of pigment and colorful fabrics drying in the sun. The artist “recalls how color filled visual space as music did auditory space and together constituted the earliest sensations he experienced” (H. Wooden, Natvar Bhavsar: Encounter with Color, Wichita, 1985, p. 1). Along with his personal interactions with some of New York’s most prominent abstractionists and Color Field experts, such as Mark Rothko, Barnett Newman and Robert Motherwell, these experiences informed Bhavsar’s approach to painting.
The artist’s creative process is equally, if not more, important than its outcome. He does not use fiber brushes, palette knives or air brushes, and neither pours nor drips pigments. Instead, Bhavsar sifts dry powdered pigment through a fine screen strainer held above a horizontally stretched paper or canvas. This method requires more control than traditional techniques, including a keen awareness of his own body and movements. Minute particles of pigment fall upon the field, adhering to a wet binder, and the repetitive application produces a layered, grainy effect on the surface. Each sift is a word in Bhavsar’s unique visual language, and each layer is a sentence that evokes the emotive and symbolic possibilities of color.
Fundamental to Bhavsar’s visual language are his childhood experiences in India and those he had as a young artist in New York. His paintings reveal the deep-rooted significance of color in Indian life. Bhavsar’s mother came from a textile printing family, and as a child he played among vats of pigment and colorful fabrics drying in the sun. The artist “recalls how color filled visual space as music did auditory space and together constituted the earliest sensations he experienced” (H. Wooden, Natvar Bhavsar: Encounter with Color, Wichita, 1985, p. 1). Along with his personal interactions with some of New York’s most prominent abstractionists and Color Field experts, such as Mark Rothko, Barnett Newman and Robert Motherwell, these experiences informed Bhavsar’s approach to painting.
The artist’s creative process is equally, if not more, important than its outcome. He does not use fiber brushes, palette knives or air brushes, and neither pours nor drips pigments. Instead, Bhavsar sifts dry powdered pigment through a fine screen strainer held above a horizontally stretched paper or canvas. This method requires more control than traditional techniques, including a keen awareness of his own body and movements. Minute particles of pigment fall upon the field, adhering to a wet binder, and the repetitive application produces a layered, grainy effect on the surface. Each sift is a word in Bhavsar’s unique visual language, and each layer is a sentence that evokes the emotive and symbolic possibilities of color.