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“Even as the thick, lush forests and the natural surroundings of his childhood were awakened, so was the darker side, the night with all its hidden sounds and fears”. In S.H. Raza’s own words, “Nights in the forest were hallucinating; sometimes the only humanizing influence was the dancing of the Gond tribes. Daybreak brought back a sentiment of security and well-being. On market-day, under the radiant sun, the village was a fairyland of colors.... “Even as the thick, lush forests and the natural surroundings of his childhood were awakened, so was the darker side, the night with all its hidden sounds and fears”. In S.H. Raza’s own words, “Nights in the forest were hallucinating; sometimes the only humanizing influence was the dancing of the Gond tribes. Daybreak brought back a sentiment of security and well-being. On market-day, under the radiant sun, the village was a fairyland of colors. And then, the night again. Even today I find that these two aspects of my life dominate me and are an integral part of my paintings” (Yashodhara Dalmia, The Making of Modern Indian Art: The Progressives, Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 2001, p. 155). For Raza, the colour black held immense meaning and potential. To him, it was the ‘mother colour’ from which all other hues were born; just as day emerged from the dark of night, for the artist, colour and light emerged from blackness.

During the 1970s and 80s, Raza drew on his childhood memories of night time in the densely forested village of Kakaiya, Madhya Pradesh, where he was born, to create several meditations on the significant role of darkness in the gestation of colour and life. “It must be said that of this period, with its gestural abstractions, the dark paintings with their resonances of night and its flickering lights are compelling compositions…They evoke powerful emotions even as their colour juxtapositions create a throbbing movement on the surface” (Ibid., p. 156).

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