Important Notice

One of India’s foremost modernists, Anjolie Ela Menon has regularly re-envisioned her role as an artist throughout her decades-long career. By applying diverse principles, mediums and techniques, Menon has produced a body of work that has continually presented new ideas, perspectives and styles, all while successfully avoiding categorisation.

Menon’s exposure to medieval Christian and Byzantine art while studying in Paris left a heavy... One of India’s foremost modernists, Anjolie Ela Menon has regularly re-envisioned her role as an artist throughout her decades-long career. By applying diverse principles, mediums and techniques, Menon has produced a body of work that has continually presented new ideas, perspectives and styles, all while successfully avoiding categorisation.

Menon’s exposure to medieval Christian and Byzantine art while studying in Paris left a heavy impression on her painting style, as one notices in lots 98 and 99. She adopted the traditional compositional practices of early Christian art - namely, the frontal perspective, averted head and slight elongation of the body - to depict contemporary human figures, often female bodies.

Lot 99 captures one of Menon’s trademark subjects - “indistinct figures with empty eyes” - a figurative style that is reminiscent of her early works. (Amrita Jhaveri, A Guide to 101 Modern and Contemporary Indian Artists, Mumbai: India Book House, 2005, p. 56) The central figure’s profile is highlighted by the strong strokes of her hair that is contrasted against the deep gold background. One notices the gold playing against different parts of her body, thus emphasising her serene expression and sensual form.

She follows a similar format in lot 98, where she juxtaposes the dark and strong strokes of the subjects’ hair against luminous backgrounds to achieve a “mysterious glow and haunting quality” (Jhaveri, p. 56), which again reflects influences from the paintings of medieval Europe.

Read More
Artist Profile
Other works of this artist in: this auction  |  entire site