Abstract Signs and Temple Frieze

Informed by his world travels, Samant’s practice employed a multitude of references including Indian traditions of painting and sculpture, Egyptian hieroglyphs, art of the ancient Americas, and the large-scale abstract works favored by the so-called New York School of artists. Many of these influences are discernable in this work: from the signs and symbols (possibly derived from glyphs seen in Mexico) arranged in columns—a favored approach Samant shared with his European and American contemporaries, including Jasper Johns—to a band of dancing figures similar to those adorning the sides of Indian temples at Khajuraho. By using plaster and sand to build this object’s highly textural surface, Samant may have been further alluding to architectural friezes.