Untitled

An alumnus of Sir J. J. School of Art in Bombay, V. A. Mali was influenced by Walter Langhammer’s approach to painting with a knife while applying colour in bold patches. A portraitist, his assortment of fruit and vegetables in this Untitled still-life painting gets an autobiographical note by way of his paint brushes that he presents in a vase like arrangement—an assertion of the self in a genre that had no place for it traditionally. The elements—vegetables among fruits, a pan lid—aren’t conventionally picked out, thus, making the work even more interesting to look at.