“His work is the story of a distillation of several years spent in researching landscapes in the context of air and water. An important aspect of these collections is seeing beauty as it unfolds in its own time and spaces” (‘Vistas, recent works of Antonio E Costa at Gallery Art Motif’, Delhi Events website, 2009, accessed January 2023).

Antonio E. Costa has led a global, nomadic life. He was born in Kenya in 1942 and raised in Ethiopia, after his family moved from Goa to East Africa. As several of his family members were artists and writers, Costa developed an interest in the arts as a young boy and began painting when he was just twelve. In his early twenties, he moved to Canada to enroll at the University of Calgary, where he studied Fine Arts, later moving to York University in Toronto to pursue a degree in Urban and Environmental Design.

Costa’s work exemplifies his nomadic life, his paintings a patchwork collection of vistas, color schemes and materials he remembers from his travels. “For over 30 years, he worked as an artist, urban planner and architectural restorer, travelling the world solo, following his dreams [...] he gradually worked his way through countries all over the globe, gathering local colours and customs to weave them into his own unique abstract tapestry” (Artist’s website, accessed January 2023). The artist uses these memories and experiences to investigate landscapes through abstraction. Using mixed media and oil paint, his work shifts seamlessly from neutral color blocking, to abstracted figural forms and vivid patterning.

This painting is likely part of his series Across Borders, in which the artist “mirrors the variations of elements that a traveler experiences in his journeys” (Artist’s website, accessed January 2023). Titled Kashmir at the upper center, this piece includes discrete columns of color and design in a bordered space, possibly representing different aspects of the region’s landscape and his memories of travelling through it.