Sangeeta Juneja presents 'Poetically Urban' which is 132nd show sponsored by Artchill
Cities are like lovers
They welcome you, touch and caress
you with the hands of their luminous streets and dark mysterious alleys, and
their lamp posts seem like the signifiers of some unknown civilization. You
could laugh, weep and dream with them and they will listen to you and never let
you alone. They seem in perpetual waiting for those who are in love with them.
The allurement of the city is such that if you enter it once, notwithstanding
the complexities and hardships you come across, you will never go back, never
leave it because, as the great Greek poet Cavafy says, the ‘city will always
pursue you.’
Poetical renderings on canvass by 6 artists , each in love with his own city, pouring his love in each one's unique style.
Somenath Maity is a painter with a strong
drawing base, his canvases are unique in their starkness and almost
monochromatic quality. Invisibility of human beings in Somenath’s canvases is
also a profound statement on the city life where imposing structures take the
center-stage and people often become secondary, marginalized and negligible.
Abstract art is not an imitation of
reality or a parallel depiction of it, but it does have a relation with the
reality which is often complex and dialectical in its nature. In the abstract
art, realism gets transformed into what can be called a ‘higher or heightened
realism’.
Somenath’s canvases are superb
examples of the dialectics of reality and abstraction, of the ‘heightened
realism’ as they do not just provide the exteriors, but depict the
essence, the soul of the city. Somenath’s Kolkata is much more
interiorized, it’s a Kolkata that transcends its physical appearances,
a city within the city where geometrical shapes, angles and triangles,
domes, turrets and minarets of a building, temple, church or mosque,
balconies, doors and railings of old and new houses cast semblances upon
each other and form another place.
Somenath’s cityscapes are beautiful,
illuminated, and enchanting visuals of the city that are quite layered and
imposing, but they belong more to a ‘felt’ space rather than a ‘seen ‘one. They
are solitary and dream-like too. They provide a visual treat, but what is more
striking is that they seem to unfold some mystery to you and you wish to remain
in front of them for as long as you can. This has been possible mainly due to
Somenath’s masterly use of light in his colors. He has succeeded in producing
the inherent light of each and every color he has used. Somenath’s colors
represent fascinating variations, layers and hazes of light and create a
pervasive veil of atmosphere. In a number of his canvases we see a vast and
stylized sky with various hues, clusters of stars and an occasional half moon,
and all these images form a grand dream of atmosphere. The lights of the city
at night were one of the first images Somenath came across as a boy from
village. It’s no wonder that they remained with him and became a part of his consciousness
and creations. Since then, he has been listening and talking to the city,
walking round it, dreaming and lamenting with it and finding a world with every
footstep. He dreams the city in lines, colors and lights, and creates poetry in
his canvases.
The fusion of neon's, bright colors and the precision of lines speak vociferously of Suparna Mondal's work as it denotes
her style and philosophy of the art produced. Art, in which traditional norms
are broken, to liberate oneself to the spirit of experimentation. Contemporary
artists are now open to experimentation on new ways of visualization and
Suparna has also explored fresh ideas & use of varied materials and medium.
She has moved away from the narrative, towards stylized abstraction to portray
the energy, pulse & dynamism in these Urban fantasies. My seven years at
Viswa Bharati helped me to understand the harmony and coexistence between sound
and silence.”
The collage of acrylic and mixed
media, that have become intrinsic to her style, add essentials to understand
each painting. Each of these paintings works as a timeline in the artist's
journey. A transition in her life comes each time she looks out of the
‘window’, the window that plays a major role in her life. Suparna says, “windows
have always held importance in this journey of mine. I have seen stories of
different cities through it and have spoken to the beaming lights and their
sounds too. My prime focus remained to be able to narrate stories of yesterday,
today and tomorrow.”
Metros have now become home to the
artist and the window substituted with the canvas on which she narrates tales
of these cities as each city inspired and was creatively captured on these
canvases by the artist - covering all the context from the streets to skyscrapers,
nature to city heights, pace to peace and from shimmering lights to fragile
windows with controlled drawing of lines , use of bright color tones and
use of interesting mixed media. These bubbles are waiting to burst with their
spirit of energies to celebrate the ease, the play of colors, tones, lines and
forms.
In this cosmos, fascination with art
and use of intense warm colors in these architectural urban scapes , SHE
composes a rhythmical succession of the different features of the city life –
living or nonliving to convey the feelings of emotional liberation which needs
to be corrected in time.
Silhouetted against the experimental
firmament of contemporary art of Rajasthan, Kiran Murdia, a representative modernist, reflects the
influences of traditions of miniature painting in her works. Kiran as an artist
of innovative nature weaves the themes that revolve around images and objects
of her natural surroundings. Often the compositions are intricate but well
structured and well-knit. The obdurate repetition creates a stylistic vein yet
the transfiguration is creative - colorful and concrete.
Her infinite love of nature breathes
life into the inanimate with soothing harmony of colors. It is, at the
same time, an escape from the mundane murky development of mad age for seeking
solace in solitude. Her attempt is to rejuvenate the traditional pictorial
idiom sufficed with a contemporary accent.
Through the last three decades by
her constant craftsmanship she has carved for herself an abiding niche in the
contemporary art scene of Rajasthan. In her present renderings of the various
landscapes, she vehemently loads her imagery with layers of pigments using
roller strokes in her artistic endeavor to delve deep into the nostalgic wealth
of heritage and love for one's own terra-firma.
Deepak Kumar -What enchants a viewer about his
works which leave them spellbound is the surge of passionate strokes that stand
vertically slash horizontally, weaving a lovely brightness of activity with
silhouettes of skyline on top and on the lower planes the edge of dark deep
abysmal sea that spreads like a band of solitude in contrast to the middle
regions of his canvasses which also convey a sense of TIMELESSNESS and SPACE.
The palette of his hues and variable tones ensures the merging of both with his
energetic zestful strokes.
Bold strokes depict his
coastline erect themselves as colors define the mood of nature surrounding.
These cityscapes are tranquil and serene in some and volatile in some as the
skyline bows gracefully to the seas...
The Cityscapes along harbor as
weaved by
Sasanka Ghosh trigger a dynamic process and compel us to look at reality as an
Impressionistic illusion and dig deeper in his abstraction to translate what he
has experienced over a period of years. It is almost as if the four winds
gathered, teased his eye lending him a fervor, strength and vitality as he
translates the depth of nature’s attributes evoking climates in consonance with
the tangled strokes of the planar divisions of the sky-we can sense an inter
connectivity of both the visible and the invisible.His canvasses are modernist in
nature with impressionistic undertones. His skill is evident in the way he
creates imaginative and stunning cityscapes & harbor scenes – as molten
images in various hues lending a strange luminosity to the skies and the
reflections beneath in contrast to the thickly applied coastal images.
Sanjay Baishnab His landscapes are picture
postcard perfect. At first you are taken in by the sheer prettiness of it all.
It is lush and luminescent, capturing with impressionistic fervor, nature at
its photogenic best. The paintings are ethereal and lovely, swathed in
blue-grey mist, his works on Benaras brim with the timeless energy of the
Ghats.
In his paintings, the landscape is
the center point of attention. It surges ahead with force and a startling sense
of immediacy. Inside the canvas, the past and the present, ideas, people and
monuments and nature melt to form a fecund world where boundaries are seamless.
If lighting is used to enhance emotion and mood, color in his work is used to
navigate a range of meaning. Bright and rich hues are evocative and
lustrous. The canvas is nourished with joyful energy & color. The
temple pond and the devout bather converge, the pilgrims , the trees, palm
shores and boats all mingle : it is hard to tell where the borders begin and
where they end. A lot is happening on his canvas. It is usually bustling with
activity and we get a feel of the imminent, as if we are about to witness
events just about to unfurl upon the canvas. We aspire to live briefly in those
moments of ephemeral loveliness as we keep our sense of splendor alive, our
response to beautiful things are heightened because our everyday lives are moored
to the world of mediocre imagery.
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E-Mail : sangeetajuneja@hotmail.com
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