Atul Dodiya
INDIAN CONTEMPORARY ARTIST
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- Born in 1959, Mumbai, India
- Lives and works in Mumbai, Maharashtra, India
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UNDERSTANDING THE ARTIST
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Using acrylics on canvas and attaching drainage pipes to them to turning his earlier shutter installations from 2000-01 into flat paintings, Atul Dodiya has showcased a range of mediums he is proficient with. He has an extraordinary ability to transform the three-dimensional objects into two-dimensional surfaces, and though he experiments with assemblages, vitrine-like installations, his approach is fundamentally painterly. He often incorporates found objects like shirt, synthetic hair, and popular iconographic representations of political visionaries, stenographic advertisements, calendar art, street signs, and photographs from his archival memory into his works. He is greatly influenced by filmmakers like Satyajit Ray, Federico Fellini, Akira Kurosawa and artists like Bhupen Khakhar, David Hockney, Jasper Johns, Edward Hopper, and Mondrian who he occasionally pays homage to in his works.
Atul Dodiya’s art has its root in other arts. He includes poetry, text and literary reference in his works to form an intriguing text to image relationship. He said once, “As a young boy, I enjoyed history as a subject. I also loved mimicry . Even now, I get quite mesmerised when I see Johny Lever imitating Dilip Kumar, Raj Kumar or Amitabh Bachchan. I started enjoying cinema, painting and poetry all at the same time.”
Alongside filmmakers, Atul Dodiya is deeply inspired by Mahatma Gandhi and tries to re-contextualise his teachings through his paintings. “He was an intimate part of my boyhood. I used to draw him quite often so one could say Gandhi is a recurring theme for me!” says Atul Dodiya. In 1999, he produced a series of watercolours on Gandhi called An Artist of Nonviolence. He juxtaposes the figure of Gandhi as an artist of non-violent protest with that of the conceptual artist Joseph Beuys to provoke a debate between their ways of registering dissent.
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SELECTED IMAGES
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Atul Dodiya, Devi and the Sink, 2004-2006, enamel paint, synthetic varnish and acrylic epoxy on laminate, 72 x 48 in
Atul Dodiya, 2003, installation at Grand Hyatt, dimension Variable
Atul Dodiya, Bapu at Rene Block Gallery, New York 1974, 1998, watercolour on paper 45 x 70 in
Atul Dodiya, ET, 2000, ext - oil and enamel paint on metal roller, int - acrylic with varnish with gold leaf powder on canvas and iron hooks, shutter - 108 x 72 inches, 85 x 60 in
Atul Dodiya, Flagellation, 2012, exterior - enamel paint on motorized metal roller shutter with iron hooks and brass letters, interior - oil and acrylic on canvas, 108 x 72 in & 87.25 x 62 in
Atul Dodiya, Piero Pierced (detail), 2008, from 'The Wet Sleeves of My Paper Robe', 15 pierced reproductions, 23 x 16 x 1 inches
Atul Dodiya, Potato Eaters, 2010, watercolour, charcoal and pencil on paper, 84 x 55 inches
Atul Dodiya, Shop in Beirut, 2007, watercolour on paper, 30 x 22 inches
Atul Dodiya, The Bombay Bucaneer, 1994, oil, acrylic and wood on canvas
Atul Dodiya, Woman with chakki, 1999, watercolour, acrylic and marble dust on paper, 178 x 115 cm