Signed and dated 'RAZA '04' (lower right)
Further signed, titled, dated and inscribed 'RAZA / "Dhayan" / 2004 / acrylic on canvas / 100 x 100 cm' (on the reverse)
Further inscribed in Hindi and English 'Did I do it. Oh no. It just happened suddenly' (on the reverse)
Further signed and dated 'Raza, 15th April 2004' (on the reverse)

PROVENANCE
Acquired directly from the artist

PUBLISHED
Alain Bonfand, Raza, Paris, 2008, p. 221 (illustrated)
Ashok Vajpeyi, A life in Art: Raza, Art Alive Gallery, New Delhi, 2007 p. 291 (illustrated)
Olivier Germain-Thomas, S.H. Raza: Mandalas, Paris, 2004, p.101 (illustrated)

"S.H. Raza first painted the Bindu in the late 1970's; a single, solid black dot that lay unmoving at the center of a field of muted colour. Since these early engagement, however, the bindu has taken on several different layers of meaning in Raza's work. In an even deeper extension of his work, Raza arrived at bija, the seed which is the core of existence and which gives birth to the fecund, fertile world. In his evolutionary manner, Raza's ruminations began to arrive at the Param or the eternal Bindu where the soft shades of ochre, green and white are transposed from light to dark in subtle nuances conveying a sense of movement. If naad bindu denotes the eternal rhythm underlying creation then the Shanti Bindu as in this work which followed emanated in its rarefied colour harmonies the enveloping peace which wrapped the universe. Sometimes the bija or seed, bearing infinite generative potential, and at others a large black orb, surrounded by concentric rings of multiple hues, the bindu has generated an iconic non-objective idiom for the artist." [...] (Ashok Vajpeyi, A life in Art: Raza, Art Alive Gallery, New Delhi, 2007 p. 198-199)

In one of his canvases in 2004, Raza made another interpretation of the bindu, with rings radiating from the black core of the painting to a less darker shades of black, and finally to an almost abstinent palette of whites and grays. The work, with a title that translates into contemplation, the black bindu transmits white light spreading serenity and clarity with gentler quality as it reaches the edges of the canvas.

"Likening these recent almost monochromatic works to a new step in his spiritual journey towards significant form and the infinite, Raza notes: "I have found a divine quest in me to come to the essentials. Less is more. And I thought, that to express my aspiration to the divine, I would use fewer colours, to create a sacred feel" [...] (Understanding Raza: Many ways of looking at a Master, Vadehra Art Gallery, New Delhi, 2013, p. 345)