Awakening

At the root of Raza's paintings lies a strong tie to nature and to the forests of Madhya Pradesh where he was born. Even though the paintings he currently creates are abstract, the concept of nature remains and changes from a literal represetnataion to one that is symbolic. "Awakening" refers to one of the fundametal tenets of Raza's paintings: his belief in the cyclical nature of life; that the immense power of nature, as embodied by the sun and the earth will give birth to new life. This lends an "implicit sense of timelessness which is all pervasive, which brings a different meaning to his pictures...He has abstracted from Nature its essence, its deeper implications for mankind." (Geeti Sen, Bindu: Space and Time in Raza's Vision, New Delhi, 1997, p. 27.)