Natvar Bhavsar

“It’s as if Bhavsar wants us to see darkness in a new way, not as the opposite of light but as a variant on it. In his art, all is in flux; everything is both what it is and all that it might become.” - Carter Ratcliff (H. Khanbhai, Natvar Bhavsar: Beginnings & Sublime Light, Aicon Gallery, New York, 2018, p. 9)

An internationally regarded artist, Natvar Bhavsar was awarded the Barnett and Annalee Newman Foundation Grant Award in 2010 for his contribution to the arts. Bhavsar’s work can be found in numerous institutions including the Solomon R Guggenheim Museum, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Whitney Museum of American Art, and The Boston Museum of Fine Art.

Born in 1934 and raised in Gujarat, India, Bhavsar’s work reveals the deep-rooted significance of color in Indian life. Bhavsar arrived in the United States in 1962 to further his art education. After graduating with a master’s degree in Fine Arts from the University of Pennsylvania, he was awarded a John D. Rockefeller III Fund Fellowship and moved to New York. As a Rockefeller Fellow, Bhavsar was introduced to Mark Rothko, Clement Greenberg, Robert Motherwell and Barnett Newman, resulting in excellent exposure to color field painting and abstract compositions. It was in this milieu that Bhavsar’s artistic practice matured, and he developed an original visual vocabulary that combined elements of color field painting and Abstract Expressionism with a commitment to a meticulous powder process.

Bhavsar’s creative process is equally as intentional and important as its outcome. He neither pours nor drips pigment and does not use fiber brushes, palette knives or air brushes. Instead, Bhavsar sifts dry powdered pigment through a fine screen strainer held above a stretched canvas. Minute particles of pigment fall upon the field, adhering to a wet binder, and the repetitive application produces a layered, grainy effect on the surface.

Untitled (Red) is a masterful example of Bhavsar’s idiosyncratic approach to color, and a testament to his artistic identity that seamlessly unites American and Indian elements. This work captures a chromatic intensity that absorbs the viewer in its totality. Untitled (Red) oscillates between shades of red and purple, a prime example of the movement that Bhavsar can produce with powder. Bhavsar reaches a pinnacle of his style in Untitled (Red), harmonizing textural elements of the canvas with scattered spots of rich purple, green and orange pigments that result in a galactic sensation.