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Lot Essay
Encounter, painted in 2000, encapsulates Sayed Haider Raza’s iconic and innovative language of geometric abstraction. According to Raza, his works from this period are essentially the "result of two parallel enquiries. Firstly, it is aimed at pure plastic order. Secondly, it concerns nature. Both have converged into a single point, the bindu, symbolizes the seed, bearing the potential for all life. It is also a visible form containing all the requisites of line, tone, colour, texture and space" (Artist statement, 'Artists Today: East West Visual Encounter,' Marg, Bombay, 1985, p. 18).
For Raza, concentric circles and geometric forms were not intended as an abstract graphic device as in the style of Frank Stella’s geometric works, but as something more fundamental; symbolic of something spiritual and primal. The circle becomes less of a structural component and more of a central point representing concentrated energy. This element referred to as the bindu manifests itself in various forms throughout Raza's works from the early 1980s onwards, and is variously interpreted as zero, a drop, a seed, or a sperm - the genesis of creation. The bindu is the focal point for meditation and the principle around which Raza structures his canvases and indeed his entire perception of the universe. Encounter is an exemplar of Raza’s quintessential bindu, an iconic image at the very center of the artist’s oeuvre.
Geometry and its relationship to color for Raza are the basis for a codified and symbolic language. Raza uses powerful shapes and primary colors to represent different aspects of the natural world. In a sense, therefore, they represent a continued investigation into his favored genre of landscape which dominated the artist's oeuvre throughout his career. Raza’s use of this sacred geometry cracks wide open the interpretive space of the image; neither specific to a particular religion, nor bound to a particular geography, these forms are elemental, primordial and eternal.
For Raza, concentric circles and geometric forms were not intended as an abstract graphic device as in the style of Frank Stella’s geometric works, but as something more fundamental; symbolic of something spiritual and primal. The circle becomes less of a structural component and more of a central point representing concentrated energy. This element referred to as the bindu manifests itself in various forms throughout Raza's works from the early 1980s onwards, and is variously interpreted as zero, a drop, a seed, or a sperm - the genesis of creation. The bindu is the focal point for meditation and the principle around which Raza structures his canvases and indeed his entire perception of the universe. Encounter is an exemplar of Raza’s quintessential bindu, an iconic image at the very center of the artist’s oeuvre.
Geometry and its relationship to color for Raza are the basis for a codified and symbolic language. Raza uses powerful shapes and primary colors to represent different aspects of the natural world. In a sense, therefore, they represent a continued investigation into his favored genre of landscape which dominated the artist's oeuvre throughout his career. Raza’s use of this sacred geometry cracks wide open the interpretive space of the image; neither specific to a particular religion, nor bound to a particular geography, these forms are elemental, primordial and eternal.