Page 34 - TheArtsTrust Krishen Khanna

dense void of greens and yellows contrasted above: Khanna at a conference
with streaks of vivid red. The artist allows in the late 1980s
opposite above: Khanna
the expressive strokes to suggest form and receiving an award from then
movement. The arched back, the bend of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi
opposite below: Khanna
the knees, or the abstract tilt of the head are painting with artist K H Ara, as
all executed through blurred contours and collector and critic Emanuel
Schlesinger looks on
layered brushwork. In a similar exploration
of the human form in his 1970 work titled
Seated Figure, swathed in intense hues of red, the figure appears to oscillate
between form and dissolution. These works exemplify a juncture in Khanna’s
artistic sensibilities when he converged colours with expressionist brushwork
to create hauntingly meditative portrayals of his characters.
Upon settling in Delhi’s Mathura Road area, the artist was in the midst
of bustling Bhogal, a dense, working class neighbourhood of post-Partition
refugees and daily wage labourers. This became his visual laboratory. He
began to document the life of the streets: labourers crammed into the backs
of trucks, exhausted bodies asleep under layers of cement dust, and tea shop
workers going about their work. Through series like Rear View, Ramu ka

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