Important Notice

K. G. Subramanyan’s works reflect the artist’s skills in an array of disciplines. Famed as a sculptor, painter, muralist and writer, his works imbibe the precision, sensibilities and poetics of his various pursuits. Born in Kerala to a Tamil Brahmin family, Subramanyan’s exposure to Carnatic music—as suggested by art critic and curator Kamala Kapoor—and theatre from a very young age could have influenced the “...resulting rhythms and... K. G. Subramanyan’s works reflect the artist’s skills in an array of disciplines. Famed as a sculptor, painter, muralist and writer, his works imbibe the precision, sensibilities and poetics of his various pursuits. Born in Kerala to a Tamil Brahmin family, Subramanyan’s exposure to Carnatic music—as suggested by art critic and curator Kamala Kapoor—and theatre from a very young age could have influenced the “...resulting rhythms and interrupting accents of the images generated” (K.G. Subramanyan: Recent Works, Mumbai: The Guild exhibition catalogue, 2003)

This oil on board from 1980 is part of an epochal period in Subramanyan’s career. It is only in the 1980s that he began to be celebrated as an artist, with the preceding decades having paved the way. Subramayan’s involvement in the freedom struggle and with leading Indian nationalists in the early 1940s as well as the anticolonial syllabus devised by Nandalal Bose and his colleagues (under whom Subramanyan studied at Santiniketan in 1944), influenced him to lean towards a more indigenous approach, which can be seen in his portrayal of characters and the palette he uses. As important as his stylistic preferences is his need to infuse his works with dialogue and drama. One often catches a glimpse of subtle eroticism, horror and satire in his depiction of characters. Subramanyan’s narrative technique and formal discipline is also evident through his choice of material; his experiments with terracotta marked a change in his artistic career in the 1980s.

Subramanyan’s works in this decade follow his experiments with terracotta and small canvases, which led him to create diptychs and polyptychs. Moving from an anti- narrative approach that enhanced a purely visual experience to grids placed together, hinting at narrative potential, his works from the late sixties to the late 70s laid the foundation for many of his later works. Subramanyan also experienced clarity with regards to the purpose of his art: its ability to speak to an audience and constantly renew itself. Towards the end of the 70s, he began exploring the potential of emotions and gestures in painting.

The present lot depicts a reclining, almost contorted woman looking askance, shielding herself from something or someone outside the frame. The contortion is suggestive of spatial distortion, as if simultaneously viewing parallel dimensions of the same narrative. This effect seems to be the direct result of Subramanyan’s polyptych works of the preceding decade. A nascent sexuality mingles with horror, making for a potent characterisation and story. The clarity in purpose that Subramanyan had been striving to achieve in the preceding decades can be seen here—this work communicates a very visceral fear of the unknown. His interspersing of red makes it all the more palpable.

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