Right panel: Archival digital print on hahnemuehle bamboo paper
51.0 x 152.0 (cm)
20.1 x 59.8 (inch)
'Painted Photographs / Paintings Photographed'.
The works 'Painted Photographs / Paintings Photographed', or ' Mahatma and Masters' shows my interest in the first half of the 20th century India and Europe. India's independence movement along with the European Modern Art movement, has significant influence on my artistic outlook. Mahatma Gandhi, a key figure in India's freedom movement, with his profound humanism has touched me deeply.
I have juxtaposed two totally different movements in history, arranging them side by side.
In the first half of the 20th century Europe, a huge dramatic shift took place, particularly in France, with artists like Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Marcel Duchamp, to name a few, who changed the whole notion and concept of art. During this period, India was fighting for freedom which resulted in Independence from British rule and ended with Gandhi's assassination.
Photography has a key role to play in this body of work.
Gandhi's life in the context of India's freedom is available in written words and in photographs. Here, we have those images painted in oil on canvas. While, the original paintings and sculptures by modern Masters, which were done during that period, we see here in the form of photographs.
The changing role of photographs getting transformed into paintings and paintings/sculptures being seen here in the form of photographs - I was interested in this reversal role of the two mediums.
Atul Dodiya
