Vidhyasagar Upadhyay Sold at Auction Prices

b. 1948 -

Vidyasagar Upadhyay - Some artists do not need a CV. Their canvas writes their narrative. Like the unfolding of a raga, that flows between notes and words and the abstraction of notes in the form of an alaap, Upadhyay’s works unfold many realities and abstractions, with a perfect symphony of colours.

In the formative stage his paintings were representational. As the years went by, his work began to shed figurative excesses to build a compact whole in high-tension colour fields. Now he has totally banished all vestiges of figure paintings to reach a stage where he does not have to use illustrative jottings, suggest a narrative through the visuals or implant some details from myth for the purpose of luring the viewers. Like great non-figurative painters from Wassily Kandinsky, Piet Mondrian, Jackson Pollock to Gastan Bertrand, he has also used abstraction in painting as it is used in music.

His abstractions have now explored the extreme limits of non-figuration. This has made him move away from square and rectangular compositional compact to circular ones. Artist have rarely used circular composition, in his hand they become terrestrial to supra terrestrial. They are also layered with variation of meaning. Most of these works are in acrylic, or, are in mixed media. He has executed them with dry pastel, graphite, watercolour and acrylic paints. His work radiates luminosity for this reason.

He hails from Rajasthan, and is steeped in the ethos and culture of his native place.

His paintings integrate his heritage in a similar way. His roots go deep but his branches spread into the open blue sky.