In his 60 years of journey in France, famous Indian painter Sayed Haider Raza had bridged Indian culture with Western art with his paintings. Each and every one of his vibrant and abstract painting carried the spirit of Indian philosophy's worldview. Born in 1922, Raza was raised in Babaria, Central India, where his father was a Deputy Forest Ranger. The forest of his childhood had become a significant inspiration for his paintings; it was pitch black at night without anyone in sight, but one could sometimes hear the sounds of the Gond tribes dancing. But on market gathering days, the village turned into a colorful paradise under the radiating sun. Raza had started drawing since 12. After graduating from high school, he was admitted into Nagpur School of Art. From 1943 to 1947, he studied at the renowned Sir J.J. School of Art in Mumbai.

In 1947, coinciding with India's independence, Raza co-founded the Progressive Artists' Group with fellow artists like F.N. Souza and M.F. Husain. The group advocated bridging the gap between traditional Indian art and Western contemporary art. Raza received the French government's scholarship in 1950 and went to further his studies at the École Nationale Supérieure des BeauxArts in Paris. He resided in France after graduation. Raza's painting style incorporated expressionist strokes, cubic forms, and fauvist colors. Landscape was the running theme in his works, with his early paintings consisting of mostly expressionist landscapes. After arriving in France, however, Raza's works have gradually evolved into portraying French cityscapes with geometrical interpretations, energetic brushstrokes, and heavily impasto application of oil paint. Eventually, his paintings flourished into geometric abstraction that was visually led by colors.

The 1970s was a turning point for Raza's paintings, when he changed forms into pure abstraction with traditional Indian elements. He went back to travel around India and visited caves such as Ajanta and Ellora, where he was inspired by his ethnic roots stemming from Indian cultural heritage. In 1980, Raza started creating the“Bindu” series, which symbolized his rebirth as a painter and solidified his style transition from expressionism to geometric abstraction.“Bindu” means the origin of everything, from which it births tens of thousands of forms, colors, energy, sounds, space, and time. In fact,“Bindu” was inspired by Raza's elementary school teacher, who wanted him to concentrate his attention by drawing a dot on the blackboard and asking him to stare at it. After“Bindu,” Raza uses triangle, in which the complementary Ying Yang energy in Indian culture was represented by upright and inverted triangles.

Completed in 2007, Bindu - Radiation centers its composition around a black dot, from which it expands outward into a harmonious and energetic black circle; it edges against a perfect square and continues to extend and pour out, as if it's going to break through the frame's constraint. The intersecting blue, yellow, and orange lines on the corners pulse toward the circle, like a Mandala that's coated in geometric abstraction - it's a crossover between Indian religious totem and Western contemporary painting. Flat brushstrokes, minimalist forms, and the utilization of bright colors reflect an inner landscape that's beyond realism. Bindu as the subject image represents the convergence of vision and soul, bringing the viewer into a meditative space to seek for an almost religious spiritual experience.

Raza had earned countless awards in his life. In 1956, he received the Prix de la Critique in Paris, becoming the first foreign artist to be honored with such award. He was also given three highest citizen honors by India: Padma Shri (1981), Padma Bhushan (2007), Padma Vibhushan (2013). He was even granted Commandeur de la Legion d'honneur by the French government in 2015. His past exhibitions included the 1956 Biennale de Venice, the 1956 Biennale de São Paulo, and the Biennale de Menton in 1966, 1968, and 1978. His works were also exhibited in London's Royal Academy and New Delhi's Lalit Kala Akademi. In March, 2018, his work Tapovan (1972) was sold for nearly US$4.5 million at Christie's in New York, breaking his own auction record. Raza has become the quintessential South Asian artist for collectors.