Lot 20: ATUL DODIYA

Fallen Leaves - A Stroll #2

123 x 155 x 4.5 cm (48 1/2 x 61 x 2 in).

Oil on dried leaf, powder coated mild steel, auto body solder and red oxide.

2006

Wolverhampton, Initial Access, Frank Cohen Collection: Passage to India, 15 March 2008 - 2 August 2008

Arario Gallery, Beijing

The work of Atul Dodiya concerns itself with the interactions between cultures, traditions and art forms. Fallen Leaves – A Stroll #2 is a classic example of how these interrelations come together in a single artwork.
Created from seemingly unrelated pieces – portraits of historical figures, a walking cane and a geometric abstract design, the resulting work is like a rebus that resists a coherent narrative. Dodiya forces the viewer to become an active participant in the artwork by trying to make sense of the relations between the work’s discrete parts. This technique, and the title’s allusion to walking, brings to mind the literary stream of consciousness championed by Modernist writers like Virginia woolf and James Joyce. Different mnemonic fragments, past and present, both monumental and insignificant can be the passing topics of thought or conversation overheard on a stroll. Memories become like leaves blowing past –  names, stories, sites, sounds, smells and fleeting wants are at one moment at the forefront of our consciousness but, as with a sudden gust of wind or a distraction, our mind is taken elsewhere.
Dodiya  is  also  concerned  with  the  aspirations  of  the  middle  class  and  the impact of globalization upon homeland traditions. The political figures in the paintings were concerned, to various degrees, with the rights of the working class and their ambitions for a better life. The combination of oil paint on leaves extends this dialogue by presenting a style of art associated with the upper class, such as oil painted portraits, on readily available material like dead leaves.
The interconnections between east and west, between wealth and poverty, alert  the  viewer  to  multiple  art  historical  allusions. The  combination  of  different materials and icons makes reference to the Combines of the late American painter Robert Rauschenberg. The nonsequiturs and puzzles that arise from the placement of the works also allude to the works of conceptual artist John Baldessari. These references reflect the extent to which globalization has been absorbed by and has changed local traditions.
Dodiya asks the viewer to the think about how all that makes up the modern world is connected, and it is these connections, Dodiya argues, that are by turns obvious and hidden. it is up to us, the viewer, on a stroll, to decipher them.