Important Notice

"Padamsee's figures and heads attest to a subtle articulation of public concerns. Here we find the heads of saints and martyrs, their features crystallising slowly, as though emerging from water or forming on a wet shroud. Padamsee's protagonists are often composite figures, suggestive now of a medieval monk, now of Tarkovsky's Stalker or a survivor from a prison camp. Their eyes do not rest on us; nor are they fixed on any external object. They... "Padamsee's figures and heads attest to a subtle articulation of public concerns. Here we find the heads of saints and martyrs, their features crystallising slowly, as though emerging from water or forming on a wet shroud. Padamsee's protagonists are often composite figures, suggestive now of a medieval monk, now of Tarkovsky's Stalker or a survivor from a prison camp. Their eyes do not rest on us; nor are they fixed on any external object. They do not communicate suffering in the raw, so much as suffering overcome by fortitude. They resemble Padamsee's 'Prophets' of the 1950s, but unlike those radiant apostles, confident envoys of eternity, these are pilgrims of survival who bear testimony to the splendour of knowledge, but have also wrestled with the daemons of the flesh, been broken by pogrom and holocaust" (Ranjit Hoskote, "The Ricochet of the Line", Akbar Padamsee: Drawings, Watercolours, Photographs, Pundole Art Gallery exhibition catalogue, 2004, p. 4).

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