Important Notice

Gandhari, the figure depicted in this painting, is drawn from the Hindu epic, the Mahabharata. She was wed to Dhritarashtra, the king who is crowned despite his blindness. When she learned of his condition, she decides to join him in his "world of darkness" and wear a blindfold which she will never remove. Gandhari was also depicted as the mother of a hundred sons, who were all killed in battle and the epic tells of an all- powerful grief,... Gandhari, the figure depicted in this painting, is drawn from the Hindu epic, the Mahabharata. She was wed to Dhritarashtra, the king who is crowned despite his blindness. When she learned of his condition, she decides to join him in his "world of darkness" and wear a blindfold which she will never remove. Gandhari was also depicted as the mother of a hundred sons, who were all killed in battle and the epic tells of an all- powerful grief, contained in her eyes behind the blindfold.
"Bawa`s figures, modeled in a surreal manner as they are, can safely be placed in a tradition of innovation and experiment that goes back through the prints and paintings of Kalighat and the Company School to the miniatures of the Mughal and Rajput ateliers. And while the artist traces his preoccupation with the rich, flat, single-colour field… it is not in his choice of colours, but in his rejection of deep-recessive space that Bawa`s Indianess lies: his protagonists do not emerge from an imagined background or prop themselves up against the wide horizon of an opening world; rather, they manifest themselves suddenly, like apparitions, in a field that could well be an aura."
(Ranjit Hoskote, Bose Pacia Modern exhibition essay)

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