SCULPTED STEEL OF RAGHAV KANERIA

This article is a critical appreciation of Raghav Kaneria's welded sculptures done in scrap metal, mild steel, and stainless steel since 1962 to 2016.Though he has worked on many mediums like terracotta, bronze, wood, scrap metal, cement, assemblage etc. but in this article, I would like to concentrate only one medium and that is ‘sheet metal' in its different forms like mild steel, stainless steel, and scrap metal. I have divided these works into three different phases depending on the style and treatment of his works and subject matter. His first phase works were mostly done with scrap metals where found objects were welded together to create new forms. Many of these works were done when he was studying in Faculty of Fine Arts (Vadodara) and later in a Mumbai factory. These works have a rugged quality of the scrap metal sculptures with its strange primitive vitality. His second phase works were the smooth polished surfaces of abstract forms which he calls ‘sprouting', done during his studies in Royal college of Art, London and during his teaching period in Waltham Forest Technical College, London and Hull College of Art, London. These sculptures consist of smooth tubular forms created in mild steel which were not an assemblage of direct forms, but a meticulous execution of forms inspired by nature. His third phase is the sensuous, simplistic, and decorative forms of Bull which he calls ‘Nandi'. They were done in stainless steel sheets in Baroda, between 2014- 2016. These forms in stainless steel were created using huge flat steel sheets joined together by welding. They are simply called the Nandi forms. These three phases have different approach of execution. In this article I have tried to bring together a selection of his oeuvres made in ‘metal sheets' but with very different approach in each series evoking diverse expressions.