(born in India in 1932, lives in Vienna)
Untitled, signed, dated Pravin Cherkoori 1985, oil on canvas,
190 x 280 cm, on stretcher

Provenance:
Collection, Vienna-directly from the artist

It is said that the geometric signs and symbols of the mandala, which have been assimilated into Indian folk art, were drawn in the sand and earth at the beginning of history and human knowledge. This original connection between spiritual symbolism and matter may have been translated into the unapproachable intensity of the images and established a system of reference. The inscription of the signs into the earthly elements pushes their meaning into the distance, into an otherworldly space-time structure.
Circles, squares, rectangles, and even ovals, are often found at the centre of the pictures, mostly in the form of light colours set off against a dark surface that frames them.
These bright centres have a magnetic pull, they suggest an opening, a window, a gate; when you get close to them, however, it seems that their apparent transparency disappears, that their suggestive brightness is based on the repulsion of strength and density. The gate passes into nothingness, the observer remains on their own, a secret closes itself off to their eyes.
Cathrin Pichler - from: Weltauge-Gedankenstille, Vienna 1998