Important Notice

Though his current work is often three-dimensional, Atul Dodiya was initially fascinated by the idea of confining the three-dimensional to the two dimensions of his canvas. It was in this context that the artist spent much of the late 1980s painting monumental portraits of the quiet, middle-class life he grew up with.

In these large, frequently autobiographical canvases, the artist adopted a muted and uncomplicated photorealist idiom,... Though his current work is often three-dimensional, Atul Dodiya was initially fascinated by the idea of confining the three-dimensional to the two dimensions of his canvas. It was in this context that the artist spent much of the late 1980s painting monumental portraits of the quiet, middle-class life he grew up with.

In these large, frequently autobiographical canvases, the artist adopted a muted and uncomplicated photorealist idiom, developed through a flat application of colour inspired by the work of artists like Indian Modernist Bhupen Khakhar and British Pop artist David Hockney. Unlike the metaphorical, layered pieces that Dodiya created on his return from Paris in the mid 1990s, these paintings, often reproduced from photographs, were comfortable portraits of the artist’s family and friends at rest in their homes. Contrasting stark interiors with detailed exterior views in the same frame, this series of works offered a fresh take on the renowned domestic interiors of the Dutch Masters like Steen, Metsu and Vermeer. Even as Dodiya adopted their masterful use of light and shadow, he chose to depict his solitary subjects interacting with both the internal and external spaces in the frame.

In the present lot, titled Chikoo Drawing, Dodiya captures a young boy in the clandestine act of drawing on the walls with a piece of chalk. Using a transparent curtain to half-hide the scene, the artist bestows on his viewers a sense of voyeurism. Outside, the uninvitingly rocky landscape and thin meandering stream only heighten the painting’s stark, solitary feel. As in the rest of Dodiya’s works from this period, a restrained palette, tightly controlled chiaroscuro, strong figurative realism, and flat photographic effect define this canvas.

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