Jyothi Basu

Gallery Steinrucke + Mirchandani, Mumbai

Jyothi Basu, Visionary Antiquities, Nature Morte, New Delhi, 2006

Jyothi Basu, Visionary Antiquities, Nature Morte, New Delhi, 2006, p.3. illustrated.
Enrico Navarra, Made by Indians, 2006, p.286.

in good condition, minor paint shrinkage along left and right edges, blue of stars slightly more turquoise in tone, as viewed
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'For Jyothi Basu, the painting is an anthology of details to be read and decoded; it refers to a variety of domains, including architecture, the natural world, cryptography, technology and mathematics. Obliterated Malayalam calligraphy chases mathematical symbols across Jyothi Basu's painted screen... If these paintings suggest the austere architecture of the space station or the furniture of the laboratory, they also greet the eye with a jewellery of flickers and speckles. ' (Edited from the artist's biography published on  www.galeriems.com )

For the past few years Jyothi Basu has produced exquisitely detailed landscapes that have the feeling of futuristic lunar cities. The intricate landscapes have been compared to electronic circuit boards that pulsate with glowing colours, potentially a metaphor for the technological and cultural changes that India and the artist have witnessed in the recent past. The geographical compositions however are partially based on childhood memories of his home in Kerala which in this instance has then been transformed into a disturbing vision of a landscape under atttack. Though not small, the paintings have a miniaturist feeling in which the detailed buildings retain a tactile sensuousness.

'Basu's paintings and pastel works are constructed in such a way as to increase their phantasmagorical, dreamlike atmosphere. His colours are intense and non-naturalistic. They suggest, at times, flowers or lights, as if the painting were a living being from which all of these things burst forth. In Basu's landscapes we find wide open, immense skies that contrast with the level of detail on the ground. The artist's mind, and our own minds by extension, are converted into something vast and unpredictable, but which we can attempt to decipher perhaps in the way that biologists, geologists or naturalists observe the world. Also, however, we can delve into these landscapes without any specific intention, as one might nervously penetrate the depths of some strange forest. This conviction can perhaps be found in the new creative period of this most unique painter.' (Enrique Juncosa ,Director of the Irish Museum of Modern Art in Dublin, Landscapes Towards a Supreme Fiction, translated by Jonathan Brennan)