Signed and dated 'KARUNAKARAN 2011' (lower right)
PROVENANCE
Acquired from the estate of the artist
Artiana / Sale 1901 / Lot 20 / Art Beyond Borders / Dubai / 28-31 March 2019
Private collection, Dubai
LOT ESSAY
C.N. Karunakaran started his painterly journey doing murals which became a huge part of his artistic vocabulary and lent his work structure, order, and organization. A superb colorist, Karunakaran used bright hues and somber tones in creating the concept of feminine uniqueness. He used flowing lines to give his canvases a whimsical and almost musical quality.
Malayalam art critic and scholar Vijayakumar Menon posits, “His colors radiate into their own tonal gradations as in music. Whatever the color he uses, the hue sinks into its lightest tones as a shadow or a reflection of it to get the silent repose of the same as the periodical absolute silence in reverberating musical compositions. Karunakaran’s paintings have a kind of color formula that shows the balance not of two different colors, but of tones of the same, each reflecting its own brightness or dullness. The transition of one hue from its freshness to its own numerous shades is musical as well as lyrical.”