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拍品专文
For Sayed Haider Raza, the use of concentric circles and geometric forms was not intended as an abstract graphic device in the style of Frank Stella or Kenneth Noland, but as something more fundamental; symbolic of the spiritual and primal. In Raza’s work, the circle is less of a structural component and more of a central point representing concentrated energy. This element, referred to as the bindu, manifests itself in various forms in the artist’s body of work, and is variously interpreted as zero, a drop, a seed, or a sperm – the genesis of creation. The bindu is the focal point for meditation and the principle around which Raza configures his canvases and, indeed, his entire perception of the universe.
According to Raza, these works, which he painted from the late 1970s onwards, are the “result of two parallel enquiries. Firstly, it is aimed at pure plastic order. Secondly, it concerns nature. Both have converged into a single point, the bindu, symbolizes the seed, bearing the potential for all life. It is also a visible form containing all the requisites of line, tone, colour, texture and space” (Artist statement, 'Artists Today: East West Visual Encounter,' Marg, Bombay, 1985, p. 18). Utapatti, translates roughly from Sanskrit as production or the act of rising, becoming visible or coming forth into existence. In the present lot, the artist represents this part of the cycle of existence using a warm palette of vermillion tones. Here, this concept is represented by a series of chevrons, symbolic of trees and growth, which cradles a seemingly ascendant red bindu. The upright and inverted interlocked triangles below it signify the balanced masculine and feminine energies, or purush and prakriti, whose union has led to the conception and emergence of this bindu.
For Raza, geometry and its relationship to color are the basis for the codified and symbolic language we see in works from this series. The artist uses potent shapes and primary colors to represent different aspects of the natural world and its cyclical existence like Utapatti. In a sense, therefore, they represent a continued engagement with his favored genre of landscape, which has dominated the artist’s oeuvre throughout his career. Raza’s use of this sacred geometry cracks open the interpretive space of the image; neither specific to a particular religion, nor bound to a particular geography, these forms are elemental, primordial and eternal.
According to Raza, these works, which he painted from the late 1970s onwards, are the “result of two parallel enquiries. Firstly, it is aimed at pure plastic order. Secondly, it concerns nature. Both have converged into a single point, the bindu, symbolizes the seed, bearing the potential for all life. It is also a visible form containing all the requisites of line, tone, colour, texture and space” (Artist statement, 'Artists Today: East West Visual Encounter,' Marg, Bombay, 1985, p. 18). Utapatti, translates roughly from Sanskrit as production or the act of rising, becoming visible or coming forth into existence. In the present lot, the artist represents this part of the cycle of existence using a warm palette of vermillion tones. Here, this concept is represented by a series of chevrons, symbolic of trees and growth, which cradles a seemingly ascendant red bindu. The upright and inverted interlocked triangles below it signify the balanced masculine and feminine energies, or purush and prakriti, whose union has led to the conception and emergence of this bindu.
For Raza, geometry and its relationship to color are the basis for the codified and symbolic language we see in works from this series. The artist uses potent shapes and primary colors to represent different aspects of the natural world and its cyclical existence like Utapatti. In a sense, therefore, they represent a continued engagement with his favored genre of landscape, which has dominated the artist’s oeuvre throughout his career. Raza’s use of this sacred geometry cracks open the interpretive space of the image; neither specific to a particular religion, nor bound to a particular geography, these forms are elemental, primordial and eternal.