Important Notice

N.S. Harsha has always been deeply influenced by science, and fascinated by the parallels that may be drawn between the practices of art and science and the role both disciplines play in the spread of knowledge. At the same time, the artist is acutely aware of the notions of location and cultural specificity, and the complexities it layers on learning.

The present lot, an enormous semicircle of silk, has been divided into a... N.S. Harsha has always been deeply influenced by science, and fascinated by the parallels that may be drawn between the practices of art and science and the role both disciplines play in the spread of knowledge. At the same time, the artist is acutely aware of the notions of location and cultural specificity, and the complexities it layers on learning.

The present lot, an enormous semicircle of silk, has been divided into a honeycomb like grid by the artist, its cell-like structure pointing out Harsha’s keen interest in both scientific thought and communal living. This painting also marks an important transition in the artist’s oeuvre, when he moved from a largely expressionist idiom to a more experimental one that navigated several unusual media, and manipulated the formal devices of scale and repetition. Here, Harsha pairs an expansive textile surface, almost resembling a drape, with a host of miniature images and details.

Exploring the ideas of knowledge and education, Harsha populates this honeycomb structure with the images of luminaries or ‘nectars’ from various times and fields including scientists, poets, politicians, authors and artists. “The faces depicted were drawn using ink and fine brushes, and their images had been sourced mainly from the mass-produced text books used at the primary schools of Mysore, the artist’s home” (Suhanya Raffel, “Our Universe”, Come Give Us a Speech, Bodhi Art exhibition catalogue, 2008). Several of the cells, however, are filled with featureless and nameless outlines of torsos, suggesting perhaps the several people overlooked by history, and left out of the text books, or leaving space for the ones who will be added to these chronicles in the future.

At the very center of the piece lies an open book. Gilded and garlanded, it is a traditional symbol of learning and wisdom and one of the most fundamental channels through which knowledge is disseminated. In addition to the flowers and garlands that Harsha has painted around the book, emphasizing the respect accorded to knowledge and educators, he asked several children from his neighbourhood to step in saffron-bronze paint and ‘run around’ it, festooning it once again with their footprints.

A community project injected with an element of performance art, this seminal and panoramic work seems to accommodate and connect almost all of the artist’s concerns, either in its creation, its dimensions or its content.

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