The Teeth

Calcutta artist Ganesh Pyne is know for his meticulous draughtsmanship and delicate handling of pigment. Influenced by the brothers Abanindranth and Gaganendranath Tagore, Pyne's work fuses the French Modernism favoured by the Tagores with the whimsicality of cartoons as he spent a portion of the 1960s sketching for animated films. Pyne began using tempera as his primary medium in the mid-1960s and his longstanding experiments with indigenous powder pigments and various binding agents has allowed him to develop a unique way of building up surface and texture on canvas. The work reflects a personal mythology or symbolism steeped in existentialism. The brooding dreamscapes populated with skeletal figures, recurring images of boat and groundless floating bodies, are intimations of beauty, decay and impermanence. Pyne notes that he was influenced by Paul Klee, Rembrandt van Rijn and Frans Hals. His works convey an architectonic structure while his treatment of light and shadow pays homage to the Dutch masters.