Eighty Five Safety Pins

This is a landmark work in Prabhakar Barwe’s oeuvre as it was conceptualised in a commercial studio in Mumbai with the aid of a graphic design software on an early Macintosh computer, when the technology was just beginning to mark its presence in India. While most other artists on the project printed their images, Barwe chose to transfer his concepts to the canvas entirely by hand without any printing. As the title suggests, the painting presents a total of eighty-five safety pins of various sizes suspended in space like a puzzle. Speaking about the process, Barwe said that he painted with freedom ‘with my usual enamel paints. I preferred this process because the body of colour that is apparent with enamel paints, I noticed, was missing in the computer print.’