Sujata Bajaj

My work draws influence from both French and Indian art. I use a lot of vibrant colors but balance the colors with texture.

From her days at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, where she experimented with monotype, to her studio in Norway and her home in Pune, Sujata Bajaj has explored diverse materials, mediums, and methods. She has worked with different art forms and mediums such as printmaking, woodblock printing, sculpture, murals, cold ceramics, fiberglass, metal, mixed media, and acrylic.

Born in Jaipur, Sujata's parents perhaps recognized her immense talent at an early age. She says, My mother, who is my teacher, friend, and advisor, taught me not to participate to win but also to learn and have fun while doing so. After school in Jaipur, Sujata moved in with her brother and his wife in Pune and joined SNDT College to pursue a post-graduate degree in Fine Arts and Painting.

In 1978, Sujata held her first exhibition at the Bal Gandharva Art Gallery in Pune. At one of her exhibitions in the mid-1980s, she met painter S. H. Raza, who describes her as one of the young hopes of art, a person with great clarity in her artistic concepts.

In India, she had been working on a thesis on tribal art and lived in an environment that she said was extraordinary, populated by myths and ancient heritages.

In 1988, Sujata traveled to Paris at Raza's insistence. The French government granted her an invitation scholarship. In Paris, she enrolled at the Ecole Nationale Superieure des Beaux-Arts and worked at the Studio Claude Viseux. Viseux's way of working fascinated the young artist: he would ink a metal plate, work on the black, place a sheet underneath, and start the press. The metal plate could be replaced by a glass one. They could not be used to make more than one print, she says.

France was a fascinating world that helped her find the balance between Indian aesthetics and modern painting. Claude and Raza, to this day, remain her greatest allies and patrons.

Tribal art plays an important role in Sujata's work even today. It is quite natural, given that she did her PhD in Indian tribal art and has lectured on it around the world. Art critic Ranjit Hoskote, reviewing Sujata's work, says: Each of her paintings acts as a variation on the past, the ancestral heritage in the palette of yellow ochre and red, reminds us of the ritual circle of sacrifice, a heroic stone, a tribal totem, a lost goddess of fertility, is suggested by certain motifs, and in the elegant calligraphy of sacred texts, hymns are repeated to the pitch of perfection.

Sujata Bajaj spends her time between Pune, Norway and Paris.

BORN

1958 Jaipur

EDUCATION QUALIFICATIONS

First Class in Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts in Art and Painting

PhD Thesis in Fine Arts on Indian Tribal Art

1988 Studied at Ecole Nationale des Beaux Arts, Paris

SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2016 Ganapati, Jehangir Art Gallery and Gallery Art and Soul, Mumbai

2014 Peregrination of Volour, Galleri Suit, Stavanger

2013 Peregrination of Colour, Indigo Blue Art, Singapore

2012 Ganapati, Sculpture, mixed media, printmaking, and collage presented by Gallery Art and Soul at Jehangir Art Gallery, Gallery Art and Soul, Mumbai

2011 Recent works Sujata Bajaj, Galerie Romain Rolland, Alliance Francaise de Delhi, New Delhi in association with the Embassy of France in India and Alliance Francaise de Delhi

2008 Emergence, Osborne Samuel and Berkely Square Gallery, London in collaboration with Saffronart

2008 Stavanger, Norway

2007 L Ordre du Monde, Tao Art Gallery, Mumbai

2007 Osborne Samuel and Berkeley Square Gallery, London

2007 Palette Art Gallery, New Delhi

2006 Gallery Art Musing, Bombay

2006 Galleri Sult, Stavanger, Norway

2006 Body Art Gallery, Singapore

2005 Chemould Art Gallery, Mumbai

2004 Gallery Art and Literature, Paris, France

2002,04,05 Galleri Sult, Stavanger, Norway

2001 Galleri Tendenes, Stavanger, Norway

2000 Varatun Gard, Stavanger, Norway

1999 Atlantic Gallery, New York, USA

1999 Stavanger kunstforening, Norway

1998 Galleri Akern, Kongsberg, Norway

1998 Galerie Mohanjeet, Paris.

1994 Galerie Argile, Brussels, Belgium

1993,97,2000,2003 Galleri Nordstrand, Oslo, Norway

1993 Maison de Norvege, Paris, France.

1992,93,95, Galerie Art and Data, Frankfurt, Germany.

1991,94 Galerie Christine Marquet de Vasselot, Paris, France

1991,93,95,2002 The Gallery, Chennai

1991 Birla Academy, Kolkata

1991,94 Galerie Christine Marquet de Vasselot, Paris, France

1989 Galerie Bernanos, Ministere de Education Nationale, Paris, France

1989 Galerie Jean Louis Voisin, Pourville-sur-Mer, France

19 89 Center dAccueil des Etudiants du Proche-Orient, Paris, France

1988 American Cultural Society, Washington, USA

1988 Mac-Robert Art Centre, University of Stirling, UK

1988 Commonwealth Art Gallery, Edinburgh, UK

1988 Saralas Art Centre, Chennai

1987 Karnataka Chitra Kala Parishath, Bangalore

1986 Taj Art Gallery, Mumbai.

1985, 95, 2002 Triveni Kala Sangam, New Delhi

1982 Academy of Fine Arts, Kolkata

1979,80,84,89,92,96,2000 Jehangir Art Gallery, Mumbai

1979,87 Kamalnayan Bajaj Art Gallery, Mumbai

1978,80,82,84,85,87 Bal Gandharva Art Gallery, Pune 

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2012 Aqua, Gallery Beyond, Mumbai

2012 Aviraam Celebrating the Pioneer Spirit- SH Raza at 90, presented by The Raza Foundation at Visual Arts Gallery, India Habitat Centre, New Delhi

2011 Form and Formlessness, Art Alive Gallery, Gurgaon

2010 Besides Paris, Birla Academy of Art and Culture, Kolkata

2010 Swasti Roop, An Abstract Show by Raza Foundation Awardees, Art Alive Gallery, New Delhi

2009 Think Small, Art Alive Gallery, New Delhi

2009 Manthan, presented by Nitanjal Art Gallery at Galerie Romain Rolland, New Delhi

2008 X at the rate of Jehangir, presented by Art Musings at Jehangir Art Gallery, Mumbai

2007 An Evening in Paris, Rome, London, Sanskriti Art Gallery, Kolkata

2007 The Tale of Two Cities, Sanskriti Art Gallery, Kolkata

2006 Palette Art Gallery, New Delhi

2005 Gallery Art Alive, New Delhi

2005 Roop Adhyatma, Tao Art Gallery, Mumbai

2004 Art Resources, Jehangir Art Gallery, Mumbai

2004 Generation-I Saffronart and the Guild Art Gallery, Mumbai

2004 Gallery Apparao, New Delhi, Mumbai and Chennai

2004 Tao Art Gallery, Mumbai, India

2004 Saffron Gallery, by Gallery Guild and Saffronart.com, Mumbai

2004 Gallery 88, Kolkata

2004 Art Musing, Mumbai

2003 Art Musing, Mumbai

2003 Indian Habitat Center, New Delhi.

2003 Torsormative Texture, Mumbai.

2003 Tie Exhibition, Gallery Apparao, Bangalore, Kolkata, Chennai, New Delhi and Mumbai.

2003 Peace, Tao Art Gallery, Mumbai

2003 Book 7, Bangalore, Chennai, New Delhi and Mumbai

2001 Saffronart and Apparao Galleries, Los Angeles

2000 Sacred Space, Tao Art Gallery , Mumbai.

1998,99 White on White, New Delhi and Mumbai.

1993 Souvenirs den France, Lalit Kala Galleries, New Delhi

1989 Indian Eclectics, Lalit Kala Galleries, New Delhi

SELECTED JOINT EXHIBITIONS

2003 S. H. Raza and Sujata Bajaj, Gallery Guild, Bombay

1999 S .H. Raza and Sujata Bajaj, Gallery Seven, Mumbai

PARTICIPATIONS

2014 Ode to Monumental Celebration, Visuality, and Ideology, presented by Saffronart at Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi, and Jehangir Art Gallery, Mumbai

2011 Ethos V Indian Art Through the Lens of History 1900 to 1980, Indigo Blue Art, Singapore

2010 Evolve 10th Anniversary Show, Tao Art Gallery, Mumbai

2008 Shanghai Art Fair, China presented by Gallery Sanskriti, Kolkata

2007 London Art Fair and Palm Beach Art Fair, Berkeley Square Gallery, London

2007 The Power of Peace, United Nations in Bali

2007 Tate Britain, London

2005 Berkeley Square Gallery, Florida Art Fair, Palm Beach

2003 Leau, UNESCO, Paris

2002 Art Singapore 2002, Apparao Galleries, Singapore

2001 Indian Contemporary Fine Art, Los Angeles - Presented by Saffronart and Apparao Galleries

2000,02 Galerie Claude Lemand, Paris

1998 Indian Spring, Hong Kong

1998 50 Years of Independence, Hong Kong

1996 Within the Frame Visual Art Centre, Hong Kong. 

1995 UNESCO, Paris

1994 Ausstellung Indische Kunst, Frankfurt, Germany

1993 Contemporaines, Grand Palais, Paris

1992 Salon Decouvertes, Grand Palais, Paris

1992 University of Frankfurt, Germany

1992 Gallerie Christine Marquet de Vasselot, Paris

1992 Galleri Bryggen, Bergen, Norway. 

1991 Salon des Independants Normands, France

1991 New York Art Fair

1989 Salon de mai, Grand Palais, Paris

1989 Neuf Artistes de la Cite Universitaire, C.I.U.P, Paris

1989 La Societe Plurielle Egalitaire, Galerie Bernanos, Paris

1989,90,91 Salon Art en Bray, Neufchatel en Bray, France 

1989 Artistes Indiens a Paris, Galerie du Cygne, Paris

1989 Galerie de la Maison des Beaux-Arts, Ecole des Beaux Arts, Paris

1988 LExposition de Peinture Contemporaine Indienne, Tarbes, France

HONORS AND AWARDS

2003 Raza Foundation Award

1991 Bombay Art Society Award

1988-89 French Government Scholarship

1986 Selected for International Young Achievers, Cambridge, UK

1986 Best Painting Award, Nashik Kala Niketan

1985 Painting selected for National Collection

1983 Outstanding Young Man of Maharashtra

1982 Outstanding Young Man of Pune

1979,84 State Art Award, Maharashtra Chancellor's Award, S.N.D.T. University, Bombay