Damodar Gurjar

India

Born 1958

Damodar Lal Gurjar of Jaipur, India, is influenced by the traditional school of painting from the desert state of Rajasthan, but his technique is a blend of the traditional and contemporary. Certainly he is one of India's leading artists of natural-history themes and a master at super-realism and depicting textures in his subjects. Born in 1958 and educated at the Rajasthan School of Art, Gurjar has made his career as a freelance artist painting numerous private commissions in watercolour, gouache and tempera. He drew much of the inspiration for his paintings from native gardens and crop fields. He is particularly drawn to botanical specimens that are rich in colour, and have intricate textures and structures. Following early botanical artists, he lay emphasis on keen observation of the actual specimens. In the final composition, careful consideration is given to the colour balance of the plant components. While painting the final image—for which he uses watercolours, sable brushes and smooth hot-press and cold-press paper—he work with a mix of coluors which are consistent with the specimen, and a range of techniques like tempera, to carefully describe the unique beauty of the specimen as well as its scientific botanical structure

Works by Damodar Gurjar in the collection