JOIN USA Pitara full of magical tales in colour
Ah! The thrill of seeing a magician conjure up things out of an empty box, right out of thin air. Even grownups indulge in this childish excitement,” recalls Soumen Bhowmick, one of the curators of PITARA, a group exhibition of paintings and sculptures currently on at Lalit Kala Akademi.
Capturing that sense of amazement in their body of work, they christened the collective works of seven artists as PITARA.“For this exhibition, we sought out for artists across India whose art could honestly portray the contemporary society,” reflects Soumen. Painting this potpourri of vivid amalgamation of colours and emotions splashed on paper, canvas and sculptures are these young artists who have come from Kolkata, Bihar, Srinagar and Delhi.
Gangadhar Mahato, the sole sculptor in this exhibition, hails from Srinagar. Shedding light on his three sculptures, he says, “These exhibits depict the internal and external conflict inside our mind.”
Elaborating further, “The first one shows a pregnant mother, a daughter herself, at the threshold of turning into someone’s mother; the second one is a thinker, which was earlier exhibited in Denmark, and the last one titled ‘Playfulness’ shows a baby with a sheen of happiness on his face as if he’s smiling and thinking while asleep.”
Speaking about the work of one of his peers, Soumen tells us, “Manoj shifted base from a village in Patna to Delhi. His work is a commentary on migration from Bihar in search for a livelihood. He pours out the pain in his heart very artistically.” Displaying a series of human heads on paper, Soumen critically analysed and showcased modern day dilemmas, intermittently using a golden dagger as a ‘dagger of judgement’ in his series.
Other exhibits belong to Arpan Chakraborty, Tanoy Choudhury and Debashish who have their BFA from Indian Art College, Kolkata, and Suman Singha Roy with BFA from Academy of Fine Arts, Kolkata. While Suman adopts Rajasthan as his muse, the other three splash colours interplaying a multitude of contemporary themes on their canvas. This exhibition is on till January 11 at Lalit Kala Akademi.