New Exploration in a Universe of Color

The Wall Street Journal
by Vibhuti Patel

May 28, 2013

Natvar Bhavsar uses dry pigment to create large, brilliantly colored, mural-like paintings. Critics often place the Indian-born artist in the context of the genesis of abstract art in America, comparing him with Abstract Expressionists and "color-field" painters like Mark Rothko and Barnett Newman. But Mr. Bhavsar's method of building up surfaces through layers of dry pigment is his own. Though he harks back to India's classical music and ancient aesthetics, Sanskrit literature and subcontinental seasons as sources of inspiration or fodder for his titles, his approach is modern American, not ethnic Indian.

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