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拍品专文
The work of New York-based artist Natvar Bhavsar challenges fixed notions of genre and identity in captivating color. Born and raised in India, 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 that 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.
The present lot, a monumental painting titled Aanang, which means ‘without body or shape’, is a masterful example of Bhavsar’s ‘poetics of color’ and a testament to an artistic identity that transcends static markers of genre. The work captures a chromatic intensity that isn’t reliant on discrete colors or forms, instead enveloping the viewer in its totality. Looking at this painting challenges the eye to read color as an immersive experience, with each tone seemingly engaged in an enigmatic visual dialogue with the others. The orange, red and yellow that emerge from the edges seem to diffuse towards a central field of blue. At the same time, the blue seems to emerge from these peripheral areas. Bhavsar reaches a pinnacle of inversion in this work, an optical illusion that subverts our expectations of color on canvas. “What is the content of Bhavsar’s paintings? To absorb viewers, just as great music does listeners, to carry them away, to sweep them up, and even to strike them dumb” (I. Sandler, Natvar Bhavsar: Painting and the Reality of Color, Sydney, 1998, p. 21).
One of Bhavsar’s most dynamic patrons, Mahinder Tak developed a close friendship with the artist over the last three decades. She has spent a lot of time with Bhavsar in New York and Washington, and the Tak collection includes several significant paintings by him. Apart from collecting his work herself, Mahinder introduced several collectors from the National Capital Region to the artist's unique paintings, and hosted a celebration of the important monograph, Natvar Bhavsar: Painting and the Reality of Color, at her home in 1998.
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.
The present lot, a monumental painting titled Aanang, which means ‘without body or shape’, is a masterful example of Bhavsar’s ‘poetics of color’ and a testament to an artistic identity that transcends static markers of genre. The work captures a chromatic intensity that isn’t reliant on discrete colors or forms, instead enveloping the viewer in its totality. Looking at this painting challenges the eye to read color as an immersive experience, with each tone seemingly engaged in an enigmatic visual dialogue with the others. The orange, red and yellow that emerge from the edges seem to diffuse towards a central field of blue. At the same time, the blue seems to emerge from these peripheral areas. Bhavsar reaches a pinnacle of inversion in this work, an optical illusion that subverts our expectations of color on canvas. “What is the content of Bhavsar’s paintings? To absorb viewers, just as great music does listeners, to carry them away, to sweep them up, and even to strike them dumb” (I. Sandler, Natvar Bhavsar: Painting and the Reality of Color, Sydney, 1998, p. 21).
One of Bhavsar’s most dynamic patrons, Mahinder Tak developed a close friendship with the artist over the last three decades. She has spent a lot of time with Bhavsar in New York and Washington, and the Tak collection includes several significant paintings by him. Apart from collecting his work herself, Mahinder introduced several collectors from the National Capital Region to the artist's unique paintings, and hosted a celebration of the important monograph, Natvar Bhavsar: Painting and the Reality of Color, at her home in 1998.