Burnt Black Wood

Artworks in burnt wood are famously associated with the Gujarat modernist Jeram Patel even though Satish Gujral experimented successfully with the medium. He started working in burnt wood in 1975, a medium in which he would reach personal maturity in the 1990s. Though starkly different from his other sculptural forays, the work in consideration here retains a high textural quality, a characteristic of Gujral’s oeuvre, achieved in good measure with uneven chipping of the burnt wood. The use of cowrie shells and small strips of knotted leather ribbons renders an otherwise black vastness a minimalist relief.