An interesting and insightful article by Kishore Singh of The Business Standard points to a curious phenomenon.

It refers to ‘Local contexts, global buyers’, meaning collectors who want Indian pieces of art to be rooted in her identifiable idiom. The columnist notes: “Serious collectors will tell you that in the larger context, a local vernacular is very essential, for art sans identity is quite vulnerable to market forces, which seek content local collectors can well relate to.”

This holds true, almost without exception, of whether the contemporaries, or the masters though the perception is that they no longer respect or mythologies, history, or geography. Yet, Subodh Gupta, the favorite artist of the Western world, owns an oeuvre built around stainless steel utensils, or paints taxis, quintessentially Indian, without any parallels in the world.

Further explaining the point, Kishore Singh gives example of artist Atul Dodiya who tends to traverse the long distance from mythology —a case in point is his Sarbari exhibit from the Ramayan — to social practices like the irony, which binds goddess of wealth Lakshmi with dowry deaths. On the other hand, images of violence by T V Santhosh can resonance anywhere in South Asia, or elsewhere across the world filled with conflict. However, his work is rooted within India. Same is the case with Riyas Komu, Sumedh Rajendran and Bharti Kher.