Manjit Bawa (b. 1941)

Oil on canvas laid on board. Faint stains in hair and light discoloration in background visible in catalogue. Minor abrasion in lower left corner also visible in catalogue illustration. Colors slightlly deeper and richer than catalogue illustration.
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'Often in Bawa's paintings, humans and animals engage in a wordless dialogue that throws its participants back onto an older, nearly forgotten language of instinct and intuition.' (Ranjit Hoskote, Modern Miniatures, Recent Paintings, Bose Pacia Gallery exhibition catalogue, 2000).

There is an erotic element in his paintings; the rounded quality of his figures, with their full lips and wide eyes contrasting with the sharpened beak and claw of the bird, all heightened by the intense use of colour that resonates across the canvas. 'Colour iteself becomes a resonant variety of space: a luminous and neutral field, virtually unmarked by a specific sense of place, in which his isolated dream-figures can operate without labouring under the burden of allegiance to any single history.'  (ibid.)