• Issue
  • May 01, 2022

New Delhi: Atul Dodiya

ATUL DODIYA, Untitled, 2020, watercolor on paper, 41.9 × 29 cm. Courtesy the artist and the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, New Delhi.

Turning the corner after entering New Delhi’s Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, visitors encountered a painting of St. Francis standing his ground as the elements press against him in a dynamic swath of ochre and brown. Symbolizing strength, the image is one of the 365 watercolors Atul Dodiya made during the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic, and is dated March 22, 2020, three days before India’s first national lockdown. With a selection of 135 works from the series, Dodiya’s solo show “Walking with the waves” was partly a public calendar marking shared time and partly a diary recording the artist’s inner life during a time of isolation.