Iconic Processions - I

A new group show, ‘Iconic Processions - Sacred Stones to Modern Masterpieces’ at New York’s Aicon Gallery features works by masters, such as M.F. Husain, Ram Kumar, S.H. Raza, F.N. Souza, Jehangir Sabavala, Anjolie Ela Menon among others.

A classicist and a formalist

Jehangir Sabavala was a classicist and primarily a formalist. The landscape always gained precedence over all else in his painterly realm. Capturing their majestic changeability, it also resembled his own liberation of spirit through the very process of his work.

In essence, his depiction of nature was akin to a display of his inner emotions, and self-reflection coupled with pure forms build his mesmerizing artistic vision. One India’s most admired and respected artists, he had an illustrious career that spanned well over six decades.

A dot that sums up the essence of life

SH Raza's masterful paintings express the nature’s beauty through watercolor landscapes, through to dynamic abstractions, and into captivating compositions concentrated around the bindu. His Bindu celebrates the joy of life, nature and creation with SH Raza building a composition around many devices that offer multiples of meaning: tree of life, kundalini, yin-yang, bindu, which collate in a frenzied unity of color.

An artist renowned for sensual and romantic works

One of the senior most and highly celebrated Indian artists, Anjolie Ela Menon, sure has carved a niche for herself with her inimitable artistic approach and ability. Her figurative - sensual and romantic - works have bucked the trend of modernist abstraction followed by artists in India and internationally.

Writing about her first show in 1958 in Delhi, art scholar Richard Bartholomew predicted of the young artist, “I’ve no doubt that before long this gifted young woman will be joining the elite ranks of India's very best painters.” His perceptive prophecy about the promising artist has been vindicated by the enormous, path-breaking body of work over half a century and more. Her very individualistic style defies any classification.