Probir Gupta - Contemporary Art Day Sale London Friday, October 17, 2008 | Phillips

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  • Provenance

    Bodhi Art, Mumbai 

  • Exhibited

    New York, Bodhi Art, Probir Gupta: To Whomsoever it may concern, 16 May - 16 June 2007

  • Catalogue Essay

    Throughout the series of paintings of which Eggs and Anxiety is a part, Probir Gupta employs the motif of insects in order to summon the anxious state of mind that existed not among indigenous Indians but among British officials during the time of early colonial expansion. Gupta was inspired by historical accounts of the discomfort and horror voiced by early colonists when they first encountered the ways of life on the Indian subcontinent: the intensity of the poverty and the climate, and the swarms of both insects and people must had a deterrent effect on the psyches of those tasked with entrenching the Empire’s position in India. Eggs and Anxiety depicts in disconcerting and frenzied abstraction a silvery insect and its crimson eggs tumbling over the image of an inverted human face, and it pulsates with the tortured energies of discomfort and paranoia that were surely part of the early colonists’ experience. The themes of chaos, reproduction and resilience underlie this jumble of forms, an assertion of the indigenous forces that together ultimately overwhelmed the bonds of colonialism imposed on the Indian people.

43

Eggs & Anxiety

2006
Acrylic on canvas.
198 x 193 cm. (78 x 76 in).
Signed, titled and dated 'Eggs & Anxiety '06 Probir' on the reverse. This work is accompanied with a certificate of authenticity.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Estimate
£25,000 - 35,000 

Contemporary Art Day Sale

18 Oct 2008 2pm
London