Important Notice

In the 1990s, Nataraj Sharma moved from Bangalore to Baroda, ushering in a new phase in his artistic process. He began deviating from his early figurative works of city dwellers and labourers, to works-almost always executed on paper-that were populated by displaced machine parts and barren, industrial landscapes. In the present lot, titled Deconstructing Time, the artist lifts machine parts out of their normal industrial environment.... In the 1990s, Nataraj Sharma moved from Bangalore to Baroda, ushering in a new phase in his artistic process. He began deviating from his early figurative works of city dwellers and labourers, to works-almost always executed on paper-that were populated by displaced machine parts and barren, industrial landscapes. In the present lot, titled Deconstructing Time, the artist lifts machine parts out of their normal industrial environment. Creating a "composite industrial structure,” as he puts it, Sharma comments on the passage of time in the machine age. Here, the machine parts float against a midnight-blue grid. Reflecting on this change in focus, Sharma has said, "Moving to the outskirts of this city in western India, I was confronted with a primal, elemental landscape dotted by factories that looked extremely desolate in the summer. The world might be at the forefront of technology but for us these outdated factories and chunky machines are an everyday reality. I am not here to make moralistic statements about our oil-stained and garbage strewn landscapes. I want to seek the peculiar beauty of these desolate structures. Their permanence is comforting." (Artist quoted in Real in Realism, New Delhi: Vadehra Art Gallery, 2002)

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