PtG

One by one images flicker and roll over on the Macintosh screen in no particularly connected fashion. A tranquil seascape all of a sudden gives way to a series of marble images of Greek kuros, perfect in their athletic body, reveling in their nakedness. Suddenly the screen lights up with an image of a Venus pudica concealing her genetilia and her breasts with her languid arms. Across the computer screen on the wall of the small intimate studio, in a stark black and white photographic image, one sees a fragile naked male body echo the gesture of concealment, with deeply veined hands covered with hair; each sinewy blood vessel standing out in sharp contrast against the pale skin. It is an uncanny moment of reflective connection, for no mirror intervenes yet the two images are clearly interconnected.

Most artists commit themselves to the enduring challenge of drawing from the imagination. Rameshwar Broota continually revises the way he looks at man himself. In a career spanning four decades Broota has moved from images of existential anxiety to sharp satire to a classic heroism, which settles tantalizingly close to the edge of hope and despair. In the process he compels a revision of the notion of the heroic to embrace, rather than exclude, the ordinary.

For the last 40 years, Rameshwar Broota has been mapping a vast terrain of visual experiences. He has moved from the purely representational to abstract and back to figurative works. In the process, he has created a distinctive visual language combining elements of realism and expressionism. He has moved beyond recording manifestations of the human condition and has set out on a search to capture glimpses of a materiality.

The New Delhi based artist Rameshwar Broota celebrated his 61st birthday in February 2002. He graduated in Fine Arts from the Delhi College of Art in 1954, and soon after joined there as a lecturer. In 1958, he moved on to Jamia Milia Islamia and then to the Sarda Ukil College. However, he did not stay long in any of these institutes.