NEW YORK, NY.- FreedmanArt presents Energy of Color, a selected exhibition of recent paintings by Natvar Bhavsar.

When asked recently by Vibhuti Patel in a Wall Street Journal interview what was "distinctive" about (his) work, Bhavsar replied "... they invite focused viewing, a deep engagement with the work, which would replicate for the viewer the original transcendent experience of creativity."

Natvar Bhavsar was born in Gujarat, India in 1934, and was trained there as an artist. He came to the United States to study art in 1962, and received a Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1965.

Inspired by a variant of Abstract Expressionism known as Color-field Painting, Bhavsar soon achieved his originality by adopting the practice of scattering pure pigment onto the canvas coated with acrylic medium. "I learned art from life. In India, we absorb aesthetics from Holi, the spring festival of colors; Diwali, the fall festival of lights; rangoli - colorful, traditional dry-pigment floor 'painting' ... daily I saw miles of fabric drying in the sun ..."

Over the decades, Bhavsar has been creating all-over fields of variegated, fluid, or cloud-like color; continuums of color in which there are no recognizable subjects or discrete forms. Devoid of linear definition, color is all.

Distinguished author and art historian Irving Sandler states that although "Bhavsar has adopted a western style, he has continued to look to India for inspiration. Indeed, what Bhavsar has drawn from Indian life and culture, what he prizes in it, make his art distinctive and valuable. Bhavsar has a personal vision that both continues American Color-field Painting and embodies his Indian heritage." Sandler concludes: "At a time when cultures, whether American or Indian, have become increasingly multicultural, intercultural, and global, Bhavsar’s painting assumes a particular relevance … Looking both East and West, his vision is transnational, pointing to the universality of human experience." —Excerpted from Irving Sandler, Natvar Bhavsar: Painting and the Reality of Color (Craftsman House: Sydney, 1998).