Working in partnership with the Estate of Lancelot Ribeiro (1933 Bombay (Mumbai), India – 2010 London, England), the exhibition Heads – In and Out of Time, borrows its title from the artist’s own long-planned but unrealised idea for an exhibition, focusing on his preoccupation with portraiture and imagined heads in two of the most innovative decades of his practice, the 1960s and the 1990s.
Ribeiro’s early work was inspired by Indian and Goan architecture and the Christian tradition in which he was raised. In his 'portraits' he explored concepts of power and evil, which he listed as: ‘colonialists, kings, tyrants, Christ (resurrected), tycoons, women and thugs’. His friend, the Indian poet, translator and critic R. Parthasarathy, observed, however, that Ribeiro's ‘true subject’ was his ‘origins – Goan roots, estrangement from India, and exile in London’. The exhibition unpacks how these two concepts informed his choice of subject matter and practice. His innovative approach included working with new and experimental materials including polyvinyl acetate or PVA (a precursor of acrylic paint), sometimes mixed with other non-traditional media, such as string (Warlord, Tate). In his later work Ribeiro often worked on a large scale, employing a brilliant palette and taking an imaginative approach to reinvigorating the portrayal of the human head.
A supporting display in the lower galleries features a display of stylistically diverse and innovative paintings, sculptures and works on paper of heads and portraits from the Ben Uri collection and works by Indian-born painter, muralist, dramatist and poet Samuel Fyzee-Rahamin (ne Samuel Rahamin Samuel, 1880-1964) and contemporary artist Hormazd Narielwalla.
