A Master’s Strokes

Though widely spoken of as a modernist,Akbar Padamsee continues to resist easy categorisation. Throughout his career spanning six decades,he has remained fiercely experimental and individualistic. Renouncing the rich colour palette of his early years,he chose to paint in grey between 1959-1960 stating,“Grey is without prejudice,it does not discriminate between object and space”. On his first visit to Chandigarh,Padamsee will present a lecture and slideshow of his works at the invitation of the Chandigarh Lalit Kala Akademi.

Padamsee’s monumental works have been widely recognised for their rich and poetic quality. His work is a formal exploration of a few chosen genres — prophets,heads,couples,still-life,metascapes,mirror images and tertiaries,across a multitude of media,oil painting,plastic emulsion,water colour,sculpture,printmaking,computer graphics and photography.

Since the 1970s,Padamsee’s work has seemed to alternate between two major genres,luminous metascapes — his signature works,and the human figure which he continues to imbue with an arresting presence.

He has a deep and abiding interest in Sanskrit texts,a glimpse of which finds resonance in his statement on sun-moon metascapes of the mid-1970s. Padamsee himself made two short abstract films — Syzygy and Events in a Cloud Chamber,where he animated a set of geometric drawings.

Meet the artist on September 9 at the auditorium,Government Museum & Art Gallery at 5.30 pm.