Important Notice

Having worked in the figurative style for over a decade, Ram Kumar turned to abstraction. This stylistic change owed to a trip to Varanasi in 1960, a city long associated with both spirituality and death: a transcendence of life. The trip had a profound impact on the artist. His projections of the city were not limited to visual reproductions; Ram Kumar churned out his deepest emotions and thoughts by searching inwards. The colours and forms we... Having worked in the figurative style for over a decade, Ram Kumar turned to abstraction. This stylistic change owed to a trip to Varanasi in 1960, a city long associated with both spirituality and death: a transcendence of life. The trip had a profound impact on the artist. His projections of the city were not limited to visual reproductions; Ram Kumar churned out his deepest emotions and thoughts by searching inwards. The colours and forms we see are therefore a look into the artist's soul.

"Spiritual in Ram Kumar's paintings lies not in painting the 'sacred', but in overcoming the dichotomies and displacements of the profane, man-made world. It is precisely in this 'overcoming', that Ram Kumar is able to 'look beyond and to look within'... With all the transcendental lyricism of his recent landscapes, Ram Kumar has never been attracted to the unearthly or other-worldly, his feet have always been planted in terra firma, the palpable reality of the world. His 'abstractions' are not the flights into the unknown, but like a shifting beam of light they move, passing through the entire space of the painting, from one segment of reality to another, uncovering the hidden relations, between the sky, the rock, the river. The sacred resides not in the objects depicted, but in the relations discovered." (Nirmal Verma, "From Solitude to Salvation", Ram Kumar, Vadehra Art Gallery Exhibition Catalogue, London, 2007, pg. 26)

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