SB3

Sujata Bajaj was born in on the town of Jaipur, one of India’s most appealing cities, where she spent her childhood and adolescence. Her father Radhakrishna Bajaj had been on of Ghandi’s companions and a disciple of spiritual master Vinoba Bhave. This tells us the quality of education she may have received. After graduating from high school, Sujata plans for a while to study medicine but one of her elder brothers, a surgeon, dissuades her from doing so as he have seen her draw and paint since she was a child. She therefore enters the school of Fine Arts in Pune, where her work and determination earn her the first of her successes: a gold medal to celebrate the end of her first stage of studies, first prize at a competition organized by the university; Sujata isn’t yet twenty. At the end of her studies, having earned a master’s degree, she undertakes the writing of a thesis on Indian tribal art and its influence the main tendencies of contemporary Indian art. It must be said that tribal art, particularly in Rajasthan where it flourishes all around, could not fail to become a major reference for all those who venture into the field of so-called modern art. 1988 is a turning point in Sujata’s work and in her life. On Raza’s entreaties, after she meets him in Pune and he becomes both her friend and her support, she applies for and is awarded a grant that will enable her to continue her studies at the Paris School of Fine Arts where she enters the atelier of Claude Viseux. This painter and sculptor in introduces her to the technique of monotype, encourages her to practice, so clear, it seems to him that this might be the way of liberating forces in her, unbridling her energy and satisfying her innate taste for difficulty. As she herself suggests, her monotypes are already “mixed media” like the ones she would produce later, and still does; she combines in them all sorts of shapes and materials: torn papers, strings, fabrics, handprints and even what looks like earth or sand, or more poetically, to borrow the title from Raymond Roussel, star dust.