Atul Dodiya
Untitled, 2014 Wooden cabinet installation (treated with polyester putty and zinc powder) with photographs, sculptures, paintings and found objects 97 × 63 1/2 × 21 1/2 in
Atul Dodiya has produced a body of work that defies neat categorization, ranging from paintings and works on paper to street art and sculptures, encompassing numerous different styles and seamlessly intertwining Western art history with the history, myths, folklore, and popular culture of India. He credits Mumbai (formerly Bombay) for his predilection for such heady juxtapositions: “I was born and brought up in Bombay, and the city’s incredible diversity has been a major influence on me,” he says. Dodiya came to prominence in the early 1990s for his hyperrealist depictions of middle-class Indian life and his exuberant paintings on the security shutters of shops throughout Mumbai. Recently, he has paid homage to the marginalized and the poor in a series of exquisitely sensitive watercolors depicting, for example, a plumber, a scribe, or a painter.
Indian, b. 1959, Mumbai, India, based in Mumbai, India courtesy of artsy.net