Riyas Komu - Contemporary Art Evening Sale London Wednesday, February 27, 2008 | Phillips

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  • Provenance

    The Guild Gallery, Mumbai

  • Catalogue Essay

    Riyas Komu, a featured artist at the 52nd Venice Biennale in the India Pavilion, addresses the resiliency of common man in his paintings and photography. Comprised of images culled from the media and his own experience growing up in Kerala, India, Komu’s canvases are often bleak and disquieting portraits, intended to convey the angst and frustration felt by those living in areas of social and political unrest. Mediating these otherwise discouraging images, is the consistently steadfast gaze of his subject, unabashedly staring down the viewer and suggesting the famous archetypal gaze of Edouard Manet’s Olympia from the 1863. Using a blurry photorealistic technique similar to that of Gerhard Richter’s, the artist is able to tell poignant and powerful stories of war, violence and its aftermath through the eyes of his figures.

194

White Hole 2

2007
Oil on canvas.
183 x 152.5 cm. (72 x 60 in).
Signed ‘Riyas Komu’ on the reverse.

Estimate
£20,000 - 30,000 Ω

Sold for £38,900

Contemporary Art Evening Sale

28 Feb 2008, 7pm
London