Important Notice

Combining personal experience and imagination, Shibu Natesan's body of work strives to document the contemporary human condition, exploring individual displacement and alienation and questioning social constructs and the violence they cause. Drawing images from sources that range from historical archives to the current news media, the artist revels in juxtaposing seemingly unrelated elements on his large-format canvases to probe the validity of... Combining personal experience and imagination, Shibu Natesan's body of work strives to document the contemporary human condition, exploring individual displacement and alienation and questioning social constructs and the violence they cause. Drawing images from sources that range from historical archives to the current news media, the artist revels in juxtaposing seemingly unrelated elements on his large-format canvases to probe the validity of perception and belief. By unsettling the world-view of his audience, Natesan challenges the authenticity of received information.

He explains, "...It is the location of an image in time, place and context whilst allowing it to go beyond this that is a dominant feature in my work. Using a realistic painting language with an enormous tradition behind it gives a sense of familiarity to people from various cultural backgrounds and levels of society. The language, whilst it is familiar, can also be used to challenge and subvert established meanings" (as quoted in Anupa Mehta, "Apocalypse Now", India 20: Conversations with Contemporary Artists, Mapin Publishing, Ahmedabad, 2007, p. 172).

In the present lot, a large and riveting canvas, the artist conflates different perspectives in contrasting the image of a flock of wild seagulls gliding over a pristine beach with the uneasy close-ups of a man trying to light his cigarette in the wind and of a plane overhead. The birds seem to have surrounded the plane, inquisitive, agitated and determined to restore to the skies the natural order that they are familiar with. The title of the piece, Against the Wind, is indicative of both the interaction of each of its subjects with their natural surroundings and, on a more metaphorical level, of the way in which man and his synthetic creations often resist natural ordering or conflict with natural systems.

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