Rameshwar Broota b. 1941 'UNIDENTIFIED SOLDIER'

From early in his career Broota has focused on the contemporary human situation. His early oil paintings of the 1960’s depict emaciated despairing men, itinerant labourers who were drawn to the capital to earn a daily wage.  By the 1970’s his figures have become ‘humanized gorillas’ satirical paintings that reveal the artist’s concern for the morality of man.  By the end of the decade there is a return to the figures of the 1960’s, but presented in a new method of paint application that has become his own hallmark style. 

The new technique was discovered almost by chance when reworking and old canvas. Broota covered an old canvas with monochromatic tones and scraped it with the edge of a knife. Soon he began using a knife and blade to reveal old layers of the canvas etching the surface to reveal the colour beneath.  This highly personalised technique, less painterly in application has the quality of an etching, the end result resembling a monumental x ray. The current work belongs to the later phase where his focus remains on man, but wounded and dehumanised by war and conflict. 

‘Rameshwar Broota’s Man has over a period of time expressed existential anxiety, satire heroism, and more recently decay.  The male has shadowed the artist, from his early youth through creative maturity and middle age.’ (A Jhaveri, A guide to 101 Modern and Contemporary Indian Artists, Mumbai, 2005, p 22)