“Painting for me is not beautiful. It is as ugly as a reptile. I attack it.”
Francis Newton Souza
Sunaparanta Goa Centre for the Arts proudly announces In/Of Goa: Souza at 100, celebrating the centenary of India's most important and influential Modern painters of the 20th century, Francisco Victor Newton de Souza (F.N. Souza, 1924-2002).
In remembrance of one of the fiercest artists of a post-independent nation, we honor Souza's life and his work. Goa is special, as it was his birthplace, and reverberated in his work.
Souza presented to us a language and a world that was raw, distorted, repulsive, that reflected his own intimate, transgressive and unruly nature. He has been quoted as saying, "Painting for me is not beautiful. It is as ugly as a reptile. I attack it."
As one of the founders of the Progressive Artists' Group, it was Souza who shaped the soul of modern Indian art. Having moved to London and joining a post-war British art scene alongside the likes of Lucian Freud and Francis Bacon, Souza remained an influence to many of his contemporaries in India. He dismissed all labels, refusing any form of compartmentalization of his subjects and technique that contributed to the uniqueness and complexity of his body of work. Art critic John Berger has written, "How much Souza's pictures derive from western art and how much from the hieratic temple traditions of his country, I cannot say… because he straddles several traditions but serves none."
In Souza's world, the spiritual and the erotic dance gracefully as he confronts us with the intricacies of human consciousness and behaviour. Slashing lines across drawings and paintings obsessively recur in his prismatic landscapes, nudes and paintings of Christ.
Much has been written about how Souza's visceral world takes us on a dichotomous whirlwind between catharsis, desire, aggression and tenderness. However, little has been said on how Goa has been a recurring muse in Souza's oeuvre.
This exhibition presents a series of drawings and paintings from a private collection.
The show is in partnership with Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, Saffronart, Grosvenor Gallery and Harper Collins. It opens with In/Of Goa: Souza at 100 in Goa, followed by exhibitions in London and New Delhi, coupled with the launch of an illustrated book, published by Harper Collins India. The book will include essays on Souza by Elena Crippa, Murtaza Vali, Roobina Karode, Jesal Thacker and Dr Zehra Jumabhoy.
Exhibition Opening: at Sunaparanta on Friday, 12 April 2024, 6.00 pm
The exhibition will remain on public view until 11 May 2024
