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Nataraj Sharma
© Manisha Gera Baswani
I
n the 1990s, Nataraj Sharma moved from
Bangalore to Baroda, ushering in a new phase in
his artistic process. He began deviating from his
early figurative works of city dwellers and labourers,
to works—almost always executed on paper—that
were populated by displaced machine parts and
barren, industrial landscapes. In the present lot, titled
Deconstructing Time
, the artist lifts machine parts out
of their normal industrial environment. Creating a
“composite industrial structure,” as he puts it, Sharma
comments on the passage of time in the machine age.
Here, the machine parts float against a midnight‒blue
grid. Reflecting on this change in focus, Sharma has
said, “Moving to the outskirts of this city in western
India, I was confronted with a primal, elemental
landscape dotted by factories that looked extremely
desolate in the summer. The world might be at the
forefront of technology but for us these outdated
factories and chunky machines are an everyday reality.
I am not here to make moralistic statements about our
oil‒stained and garbage strewn landscapes. I want to
seek the peculiar beauty of these desolate structures.
Their permanence is comforting.” (Artist quoted in
Real in Realism
, New Delhi: Vadehra Art Gallery, 2002)
PROPERTY OF A GENTLEMAN, NEW DELHI
113
NATARAJ SHARMA
(b. 1958)
Deconstructing Time
Signed, inscribed and dated 'Nataraj/ NATARAJ
SHARMA/ "DECONSTRUCTING TIME"/ 1992 - 2002/
BARODA' (on the reverse)
1999 - 2002
Watercolour, acrylic and oil on paper pasted on board
20.75 x 57.5 in (53 x 146 cm)
$ 23,440 - 31,250
Rs 15,00,000 - 20,00,000
PROVENANCE:
Acquired directly from the artist
Saffronart, 3-4 September 2008, lot 2
EXHIBITED:
Real in Realism
,
New Delhi: Vadehra Art Gallery, 2002