Sujata Bajaj

“The different forms of Ganesha are timeless and limitless, which any artist can explore and create in their own way. It is different every time, although it is challenging,” said Sujata

The Progress of Sujata Bajaj, whose work I have faithfully following for twenty years, is exemplary. She has maintained her vision while expanding it, and her technique has followed? Every time we see her work, characterised as it is by a mix of dash and control, we feel it transmits an energy that is akin to a sense of well-being. This colour springs from her as if by surprise. it is her need, her necessity, her deepest nature. When I look upon some of her works, I feel she invented the colour red. Or even, shades of red. Her unmistakable concern is not to make something new but to make something come alive.

Sujata Bajaj was born in 1958 in Jaipur, India. Her parents, former supporters of Ghandi, observed her interest in painting very early on and prompted her to devote herself to it. She studied plastic arts in Pune. His thesis on the influence of tribal art in contemporary Indian art allows him to travel across the country and meet the greatest Indian painters including Raza who, although living in Paris, often travels to India. The latter, noticing her talent, encouraged her to leave India, which she did after obtaining a grant from the French government to study at the Beaux-Arts in Paris in 1988. She affirmed her style, especially with artist Claude Viseux, and began to work in mixed media, with collages of papers, fabrics, cords, cardboard, pigments, chalk, inks. Married to a Norwegian diplomat, she lives between Paris, Mumbai and Norway. The first major monograph on the work of Sujata Bajaj, one of the most important Indian artists of the new generation. An abstract and bright painting in warm tones

he enduring power of a great work of art lies in its ability to find a home in our imagination, where it will always retain a measure of freshness and mystery, even as its physical self fights a losing battle against time and decay. Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper epitomizes this paradox.
Whether rendered in oil on canvas or board, as prints, sculpture, or even as reproductions on tiles, da Vinci’s legendary painting, The Last Supper, continues to inspire artists from around the world centuries after it was painted in situ at the refectory of the Dominican monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie, Milan.
The thirty-six Indian artists represented in this book, too, have come under its spell. They span several generations, have evolved distinctive styles, inhabit varied geographical locations, and work in a variety of media—whether it’s Himmat Shah’s larger-than-life Jesus or Vaikuntam’s ethnic transposal of the protagonists, Madhvi Parekh’s vibrant folk evocation or Krishen Khanna’s masterful literary interpretation. As Ranjit Hoskote says in his introduction, ‘the spiritual impulse that animated da Vinci’s painting has travelled long distances in space and time: it assumes, and will continue to assume, unpredictable avatars’.