Becoming into Being, B

The 1960s-’70s was a seminal period for Indian art as quite a few modern masters turned towards exploring aspects of traditional Indian philosophy, to give it expression through their art, largely in an attempt to reconcile their roots with the international exposure defining the evolution of their practice. Sohan Qadri, who had settled in Copenhagen by the time he made this work, evolved his unique abstractionist vocabulary to create an allegory for the concept of shunyata or void, as articulated in the ancient Indian Hindu and Vajrayana Buddhist texts. In this work, an expanse of red and a cluster of pebbles seem to be gradually heading towards a black void to dissolve into.