Lot 269: T. V. SANTHOSH (B. 1968)

T. V. SANTHOSH (B. 1968) TRACING AN ANCIENT ERROR Signed, dated and inscribed ' 'TRACING AN ANCIENT ERROR/ TV Santhosh/ TV SANTHOSH - 2007/ OIL ON CANVAS/ SIZE: 4'X6' ' on reverse Oil on canvas 48 by 72 in. (122 by 183 cm.)

Saatchi Gallery, London, The Empire Strikes Back: Indian Art Today, January – May 2010

TV Santhosh has adopted an individual painting technique that makes his work instantly recognizable. Selecting photographic imagery as his base, he solarizes his images, creating works suggestive of x-rays or film negatives. He frequently confronts issues of violence or social injustice in his paintings, questioning the representation of war and terrorism in the media.

Santhosh adopts a cynical view of the biases inherent in our current visual culture by appropriating references from such sources as magazines, newspapers and television. The influence of print media is reflected in the photographic quality of his works, both in their clarity and composition. In his large scale paintings, such as the current work, Santhosh places his viewer at the center of the action, as thought the viewer is looking through the lens of a journalist's camera.

The artist explains: "One looks at the world through tinted spectacles of 'news reports' that unroll the stories of massacres of innocents, spectacular highlights of explosions, flux of faces of people who make headlines, spitting the words of hate and arrogance and the kinds of propaganda campaigns that just struggle to hide nothing but truth. It is a strange world exposed and manipulated. A world where one does not know who the real enemy is, yet 'terror' is a common word for both those who resist and those who attack. It is one's extended vision that construct and reshapes the perceptions of the 'present'. And it is riddled with a number of eternal questions and a couple of ready-made yet elusive solutions, which I am interested with. It is the touch and smell of the 'present' I am dealing with in my work, in a process to find a solution, where the praxis of language becomes one with the perception of reality." (TV Santhosh, TV Santhosh: False Promises, Grosvenor Gallery exhibition catalogue, London, Nov-Dec 2005)