The trams, the hand-pulled rickshaws, the yellow cabs and the heritage buildings — artist Purnendu Mandal’s paintings portraying the city of joy have it all. What is also has are traces of modern Kolkata juxtaposed with this old world charm reflecting a transition and his love for the city which has evolved over time.
His series of 17 paintings entitled ‘Aesthetic Memories’ currently on display in the capital are all about Kolkata and its changing cityscape.
“My paintings are about the city I studied in. It reflects my 22-year-long journey to become an artist. The works have all the elements that define Kolkata and also show how the age-old practice of a pulled rickshaw continues to ply at a time when our prime minister (Narendra Modi) talks of smart cities,” Mandal tells Metrolife.
“This should not be the scenario, especially in a metropolitan city, at a time when the waves of modernisation have swept across the nation,” he adds.
The works, acrylic on canvas, are painted in vivid shades. They show the rays of first light which lighten up the city, a rainy day, a stormy day, a busy street and also the scene on a regular morning — all giving a realistic feeling to the onlooker.
“I have taken the components common to Kolkata and placed them along figments of my imagination to create the works. I have painted the city’s climate by highlighting its beauty on a rain-soaked day as well as shown how it looks when the first rays of the
sun lights up its lanes,” he explains.
Ask him why he chose Kolkata as his muse, and pat comes the reply: “An artist can best paint, with intricacies, what he knows and understands perfectly...and Kolkata, for me, remains that.”
The show is on at the Triveni Art Gallery until September 9.