Ranbir Kaleka

The painting is worked on with small brush strokes… giving it the feel of a carpet pile. I approached the painting with a desire to make every minuscule square inch of the painting in essence a resolved independent mass when seen through a tiny cut out window. Each little stroke is felt through to connect it to the entire painting where every subject has evolved from the same molten flux… The surface is multi-layered… the layering and variation in the quality of the strokes affects the reflection, absorption or dispersion of ligHe. Playing with layering gives the brush (in the painting) a halo. For example, the flattened smooth strokes in the center of the painting absorb light making a hole/tunnel, (making a centre a ‘non-subject’ with a ‘potential’ – thus the ‘real’ subject). This mark-making allows me to play with the undetermined sources of light and the self-illumined body. In this orchestration, I would like each brush stroke to say I am only a squiggle of paint but I am also the sky; for each colour to say I am only pigment but I am also the earth. Painting is afterall an artifact of the artist’s craft. I like to counterpoint transcendence with the corporeality of painting: I like to give painting ‘weight’ and then make it ‘float’.

The image of ‘going away’ begins to appear more and more like a balladic turning, a poetic shift… This is not a visible, continuous image of transference. Here the stories finally separate from the figures in which they could have hoped to find a home. The figures are over-valorised in their fluidity and pose, and deny themselves the privilege of subjectivity even as they become suffused as raw, pre-narrative instincts. One walks through the libidinal being. The erotica, here, is non-definitive, even non-descriptive. One can think of very few, hardly any, examples in our tradition where the erotica aspires towards an elemental sign as it does here. Against the narrative-argument, against its orality and logic, the space of the carnivalesque opens up like a spell, like so many simultaneities.

In 2007, the artist achieved a new high in the auction market with the sale of Woman With Mirror (2000), offered in the The Masterpieces & ABC Series: Includes Indian Modern & Contemporary Art Books, Popular Culture & Pakistani Film Posters by Osian's, which concluded on 27 July 2007 at New Delhi, achieving a sale price of ₹12,00,000 ($29,644). This record marked a defining moment in the artist's market history, reflecting both the significance of the artwork and its reception within the broader art world.

In 2002, the artist achieved a new high in the auction market with the sale of Two Women With A Lizard (2002), offered in the Masterpieces & Museum Quality Indian Modern & Contemporary Paintings by Osian's, which concluded on 05 December 2002 at Mumbai, achieving a sale price of ₹7,15,000 ($14,822). This record marked a defining moment in the artist's market history, reflecting both the significance of the artwork and its reception within the broader art world.

In 2013, the artist achieved a new high in the auction market with the sale of Untitled (Twisted Rope) (2004), offered in the The Amaya Collection: Modern and Contemporary Indian Art by Sotheby's, which concluded on 19 March 2013 at New York, achieving a sale price of ₹17,63,564 ($32,500). This record marked a defining moment in the artist's market history, reflecting both the significance of the artwork and its reception within the broader art world.

In 2018, the artist achieved a new high in the auction market with the sale of Cul-de-sac in Taxila (2014), offered in the Boundless India by Sotheby's, which concluded on 29 November 2018 at Mumbai, achieving a sale price of ₹18,75,000 ($26,817.93). This record marked a defining moment in the artist's market history, reflecting both the significance of the artwork and its reception within the broader art world.

In 2023, the artist achieved a new high in the auction market with the sale of Angelo's Sanctuary (2018), offered in the Contemporary Indian Art: Beyond Bold by Asta Guru, which concluded on 17 December 2023 at Online, achieving a sale price of ₹29,52,313 ($35,562.62). This record marked a defining moment in the artist's market history, reflecting both the significance of the artwork and its reception within the broader art world.