Queen

Medium:Mixed Media
Height:20 inch / 50.8 cm
Width:17 inch / 43.2 cm
Dimension:W: 43.2 cm × H: 50.8 cm

Striking mixed-media portrait on paper featuring a powerful female figure against a bold red ground; an expressive, textured artwork that conveys cultural identity, strength, and emotional depth.

Description

Rabin Mondal | Untitled | Mixed Media on Paper | 20 x 17 inches | 2016

This compelling mixed-media work presents a frontal female visage rendered with bold contours, dense textures, and a commanding red background that intensifies its visual impact. The face is structured with heavy black outlines and layered strokes of red, ochre, yellow, and white, creating a surface rich in tactile energy and emotional resonance. The eyes, steady and alert, anchor the composition, while the simplified yet monumental features lend the figure a timeless, iconic presence. Adornments such as earrings and a necklace are suggested through rhythmic marks and glowing accents, evoking cultural memory and ceremonial identity. The expressive handling of materials transforms the portrait into more than a likeness — it becomes an emblem of strength, endurance, and inner vitality, marked by both individuality and universality.

Rabin Mondal was inspired by primitive and tribal art, its potent simplifications and raw energy.
The son of a mechanical draughtsman, Rabin Mondal took to drawing and painting at the age of twelve when he injured his knee and was confined to bed.
The Bengal famine of 1943 and the Calcutta communal riots of 1946 deeply impacted his psyche; he joined the Communist Party and became an activist. Mondal’s final refuge was art as the ultimate weapon of protest.
Mondal’s figuration derived from a growing abhorrence towards mankind’s moral decay in all spheres of life. The cubo-futuristic angularities of forms within the pictorial space arranged around them evolved into a series of paintings depicting highly distinct human figures that struggled to live a hero’s life in a mocking but tragic world.
Mondal’s images have a deeply felt iconic appearance. The series Queen, King, Man represent figures that are static, totemic, tragicomic, ruthlessly shattered and ruined. Having subverted the classical canons of harmony and beauty, Mondal evolved a vocabulary to express his anguish and rage towards decadence in society. The expressionistic use of splattered colours and the bold application of black are part of that vocabulary.
Beginning his career as an art teacher, with a stint as an art director in films, he was a founder member of Calcutta Painters in 1964, and from 1979-83 a general council member of Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi. He passed away in Kolkata on 2 July 2019.

Shipment DetailsThis artwork will be shipped unframed, either in roll form or flat, depending on its requirements—at no additional cost.

If you’d prefer the artwork to arrive ready to hang, please get in touch with us to arrange framing and shipping at applicable charges.

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