Untitled #5. From the series The New Pre-Raphaelites. 2009.
“My New Pre-Raphaelites series was initially produced for Autograph ABP Director Mark Sealy’s commission of work related to a human rig
(...) hts agenda. I had been in the forefront of the gay rights movement in India since my return to the country in 2005. I was out there in the middle of the debate on Section 377, the colonial antisodomy law, speaking openly about my sexuality and empowering others to do the same. This dramatic moment had to find powerful representation, and I turned to the Pre-Raphaelites for inspiration. The Pre-Raphaelites stood for a reformation of art, for attention to near-photographic detail and color, the brilliance of which was meant to wipe out the ‘unstable areas of muddy darkness’ that characterised the hypocrisy of the classical Victorian pose. Untitled #5 is based on The Meeting of Jacob and Rachel (1853) by William Dyce.”
- Sunil Gupta
Copyright © Sunil Gupta; Courtesy the artist and Hales Gallery; all rights reserved, DACS 2020
