Untitled

Chemical alteration was an innovation that F. N. Souza experimented with in the later phase of his career, of which this Untitled work is an example. It involved ‘drawing’ on glossy magazine pages with chemical solvents without destroying the texture of the paper. What makes it a distinct Souza work—despite the absence of the macabre or nudes—are his individuated strokes that evoke his earlier cubist-inspired landscapes, with the dark veneer of chemicals in the foreground giving a glimpse of a mansion from a gap in the shrubbery.