Important Notice

Prabhakar Barwe's art is restrained and meditative. Symbols often appear to float in space, removed from their original context and taking on new meanings. While a student at the J J School of Arts in the 1950s, his art was more realistic and gradually transitioned to abstraction. In the 1970s, Barwe's thematic and stylistic concerns altered drastically. "Newly interested in space as a metaphysical concept, he began striving for a purity of form... Prabhakar Barwe's art is restrained and meditative. Symbols often appear to float in space, removed from their original context and taking on new meanings. While a student at the J J School of Arts in the 1950s, his art was more realistic and gradually transitioned to abstraction. In the 1970s, Barwe's thematic and stylistic concerns altered drastically. "Newly interested in space as a metaphysical concept, he began striving for a purity of form and colour. The fluid relationship between an object, an idea, and its translation into an image became a 'meta-level' concern. The works begin to take on a gentle lyricism." (Amrita Jhaveri, A Guide to 101 Modern & Contemporary Indian Artists, Mumbai: India Book House Pvt. Ltd., 2005, pp. 14-15)

The present lot, Mythical Reality, is composed of the motifs and imagery that Barwe developed through the 1980s. The work is replete with scattered references to classical architecture and archaeology. A dilapidated fa??ade of a brick wall, a chipped colonnade, a remnant of a pot featuring a fish motif, and a part of a wheel emerging as a half-moon in the sky create a surreal, yet serene world. "His mode of working was partly that of the mystic-poet and partly that of the mathematician. Having cleared the mental apparatus of the stipulations of the obvious, Barwe would embark on his journey into the territories beyond mundane signification to seek out that fleeting 'pure' moment when meaning comes into being in a flash; and having made one of his 'discoveries', would return to reflect upon the possibilities of its import. His work suggests a search to exist in that part of the consciousness where the child and the sage meet, and where the mysterious is elucidated into a formulation of crystalline cogency." (Chaitanya Sambrani, "The Poetics of Suggestion: a tribute to Barwe," The Asian Age, online through bodhana.org)

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