Non-objective art is a visual language of forms, colours, textures and many a times it goes beyond. In case of Indian modern art it is difficult to identify the first Indian modern abstract painting.

Non-objective art and the Avartana: the repetition… Non- objective art or abstract art in India has its followers; some as artists and many as collectors. Non-objective art is a visual language of forms, colours, textures and many a times it goes beyond. In case of Indian modern art it is difficult to identify the first Indian modern abstract painting. 

As we all are aware that Prof. Sankar Palshik

Non Object Painter - Ganesh Tartare 

below play interview 

https://youtu.be/wQfDRDtmSEY

ar, G.R. Santosh, K.G.S. Parnnikar, V.S. Gaitonde, S.H. Raza and a few others are renowned non-objective or abstract painters of early generation of Modern Indian art. The next generation is another batch of non-objective painters such as Laxman Shreshtha, Nasarin Mohmadi, Prabhakar Barve (early works), Prabhakar Kolte, Accutan Kuddul, Yusuf, Akhilesh, Jairam Patel, Dashrath Patel, Vijay Shinde etc.The next batch consists of Vilas Shinde, K.C. Bose, Jinsukha Shinde, Yogesh Rawal, A. Balasubramaniam, Rajaram Hole and many more. Here we can consider the name of Ganesh Tartare after observing his works. His works has structural quality with full of energy. The balance between forms and empty spaces creates the melody. The forms are fluttering in the space like our modern satellites around the planet. These forms are weightless and heavy, sharp and smooth, moving and still, live and dead, aged and young.

His experience of understanding of nonobjective art as an academician is reflected in his work.

 I think that the paintings of the above mentioned maestro have a somewhat unique technique to apply the pigments on canvases. The technique of colour application is an unavoidable aspect of nonobjective art, at least in the case of Indian art. The colour application by using knife for impasto is common... Some are using printing rollers… some are using printing squeeze technique… some painters hit the colours with a mighty splash… some create effects by dropping dots from a distance on paint surface; In short, every artist has developed a method to apply colours on canvas. These techniques help artists to create signature visual formal language. Repetition of technique is considered as an important aspect of the artists’ style. Many artists usually repeat the techniques, like chanting mantra popularly called as ‘Avartana’; though colour pallets are changing. In this regard, another feature we can observe is the creative design pattern developed, created or adopted by non- objective artist. 

The pattern becomes the signature of an artist. At the beginning of the artist’s career, he or she researches in visual possibilities, makes combinations, tries amalgamations. After a certain level, he or she achieves some known-unknown visual efforts and introduces the same as his work of art. After all types of success, the artist starts repetition of his visual discovery… the formal research. The experimentation and research becomes minor and the technical craft as well as production becomes major part of the artistic creation. I would like to raise a question that ‘whether these repetitions or ‘Avartana’ are fine for artists and art?’ The answer may not be in black and white… but the question is a reality.

 Dr. Nitin Hadap

Art Open Talk Montosh Lall and Ganesh Tartare 

Link to Play
https://youtu.be/a_Eu5FoCpXQ

NON-OBJECTIVE ART
from
GANESH TARTARE

Solo show @dr_ganesh_tartare

Preview:

18th October 2022

Time: 4:00 pm - 8:30 pm

Exhibition on view Time: 3:00 pm - 8:30 pm

19th - 28th October 2022 ( Holidays @Sunday close)

RSVP: +91 9820510599 / Nippon Gallery


Also view sale catalog on www.nippongallery.com

NIPPON
30/32, 2nd Floor, Deval Chambers,Nanabhai Lane, Flora Fountain, Fort,
Mumbai – 400 001, India.

#ganeshtartare #soloshow #NONOBJECTIVEART #mumbaiartgallery #untittelworks
#contemporaryabstract #contemporaryart #abstractexpression #abstractarts #abstractsonfire #modernartist #abstract_art #abstracted #abstractartist #abstractexpressionism

Experimental art school of Baroda artist Preview: 2 Solo show

 

Experimental art school  

of Baroda artist

Preview: 2 Solo show  

1st and 4th November 2022

Join: Open studio with artist 

RSVP: email or call / Nippon Gallery:  

Also view sale catalog on www.nippongallery.com 

NIPPON  

30/32, 2nd Floor, Deval Chambers,Nanabhai Lane, Flora Fountain, Fort,

Mumbai – 400 001, India.

NON-OBJECTIVE ART from GANESH TARTARE Solo show -Mumbai

 

.

NON-OBJECTIVE ART 

from 

GANESH TARTARE 

Solo show

Preview:  18th October 2022

Time: 4:00 pm - 8:30 pm/ Exhibition on view Time: 3:00 pm - 8:30 pm

19th - 28th October 2022 ( Holidays @Sunday close)

RSVP:  +91 9820510599 / Nippon Gallery

 Also view sale catalog on www.nippongallery.com

NIPPON  

30/32, 2ndFloor, Deval Chambers,Nanabhai Lane, Flora Fountain, Fort,

Mumbai – 400 001, India. 

Subhash Awchat holds a unique privilege within the context of contemporary art history less discussed and investigated.

 What happens when you search solitude within the construct of an artistic practice?  Subhash Awchat a painter and if we suppose a writer proposes reflections of the self in watercolours explaining solitude as a material visible construct.  I say if I suppose a writer because he wrote a column in a Marathi newspaper each week detailing the machinations of his mind as an artist.  We sit discussing his latest oeuvre of watercolours in a housing project for Maharashtrian writers.  He quickly slips into near history in a voice that holds emotions.  I am witnessing as an art writer what determines contemporaneity of culture in the city where I was born.  Our conversations have a context ,  I am Bihari -  though from privilege , cosmopolitan  and easily unrecognisable for my regional identity.  But since childhood  whenever I have to state where I came from in a city to which my grandfather migrated to and I was born – it  always raises stares , questions and stereotypes which I allay with my mother’s Maharashtrian heritage even though her family has been in Bihar since the 18th century ,  sometimes my neighbourhood in Bombay or the cosmopolitan nature of my family's marital decisions.  To interview a painter regarded as what young artists in art schools across Maharashtra identify as a painter,  an artist that made them  make a decisive career decision to pursue art and an artist that reached them in Yeotmal ,  Chandrapur,  Ichalkaranji and Islampur , for sure speaks of a privilege I now hold in this essay.  

Artist: Subhash Awchat

Why is that so ?  Why is Subhash Awchat prized as the artist of India's second largest state by the populace?  Why do I feel an inclusion within the popular idea of culture , with my host culture , as a writer of this essay a privilege.?  Subhash Awachat has designed 7000 jackets of books published in Marathi .  If you read in Marathi you have encountered his visual vocabulary.  You know his strokes ,  you know his palette and the way with which  he treats colour .  He is the artist of my people ,  the people I live among.  It doesn't surprise me that his column in a popular Marathi newspaper is well subscribed.  Marathi as a language has a rich repository of literature but the intrigue exists in the passion to translate books from other languages to Marathi and publish for eager readers. One  that sustains such publishing practices economically.  You can encounter  Gilles Deleuze   , Jose Saramago , Gertrude Stein and John Berger in Marathi.  Translations not intended at a market but the need to read and change a society aware of the significance of its  language holds as a catalyst of modernity .  Mahatma Jyotibha Phule through his writings proposed the idea of modernity much before similar deliberations in the occident and Dr. BR Ambedkar sought a constitutional architecture for equity in a nation riddled with caste. Both hailed from Maharashtra, a land conducive to intellectual change .     Art History in our art schools in  Maharashtra does let  students in Sangli know of the ' Oath of Horatii '  by Jacques Louis David  which hangs at the Louvre through efforts of this tradition of translation.  I recently witnessed a friend identify paintings at a distance at the Louvre even though my privilege of an English education  did not allow or inform .  

Subhash Awchat holds a unique privilege within the context of contemporary art history less discussed and investigated.  We stand at a time where our memories hold a past that does not critically examine the recent decades that precede us.  We are embarrassed of the fashion,   music and the movies that define a decade of great confusion.  The 1990s released India from the cloak of a stagnating economy loosely defined as socialism .  The 80s were a lost decade of turmoil , bureaucratic intrigue and a failing idea of India.  Artists like Subhash emerged at the end of an era of pessimism.  Subhash was designing  the jackets  and typesetting the  publications of the Dalit Panthers and in his art making the ' Hamal' or the porter his muse.  He opened his show romanticising the image of the subaltern man ,  it was beautiful , it was decorative . Why so?  Bal Thackeray, a cartoonist and the son of a Marathi playwright, became the voice of the pushback of marginalisation of a people ignored by a cosmopolitan culture Naipaul described as a mimicry of colonial tropes.  Vijay Tendulkar in his plays had been discussing gender and political violence and thus  became the conscience of the cultural elite who were engrossed in opposing  ideologies as well the tumultuous 1990s where we suffered bouts of communal violence and division.  We were in an immense flux culturally , politically and economically.  India had liberalised ,  we had cable tv , we had just got to know the internet .  Modernism was representative of the old order.   I had just drunk my first Coca Cola and we could buy Japanese cars with air-conditioning.  The upper middle class found jobs in foreign corporations that were  selling us material goods and dreams of participation in a global world order.  Awchat emerges as an artist at this moment.  

His stories are intimate; they revolve around  his deep intimacies with Marathi writers,  Bal Thackeray's views on the Bombay School of Art ,  friendships he held with Narayan Shridhar Bendre and KK Hebbar.   The moments of success and journeys into the interior of Maharashtra with Sharad Pawar who would remember the names of a million or more constituents , eat in homes in villages only Pawar knew the way to  and directions that confused his security detail .  What it meant to be among the people.  He was the painter to the resurrection of a  people who were asserting their place in politics through the actions of Bal Thackeray and Sharad Pawar and  we became Mumbai from Bombay . 

 

 

Much of these happenings have been ignored by the society I come from. They inhabit a safe space of privilege called South Bombay.  But Awchat infiltrated their collections and circles .  He came from  the applied arts and was not a trained painter from the Sir JJ School of Art.  He was not restricted to a school or an aesthetic agenda that he had to play out in his works to prove his mettle as an artist.  Rather the act of being an artist enticed him.  A multifaceted technique and aesthetic defined his practice.  You see him work with landscapes portraits and abstracts - all of them have poetic titles.  

 

 

We now face an artist with age .  Loneliness is a facet of time.  The pandemic allowed us to face our interiority with great intimacy .  Awchat was left alone without access to his acrylics or his canvases.  A pad of watercolour paper was all that he had access to.  A pad gifted to his grandson and for colours he had basic watercolours that were fabricated here in India.  Tired of marathon calls and attempts to escape the quarantine he began painting watercolours for the first time.  These were landscapes he had sitting somewhere in his mind.  The Lebanese artist Etel Adnan wrote  poetry of deep detachment,  pain that is inherent in the nihilism of Levantine Politics.  Syria ,  Lebanon and Palestine are lands divided by religion , race and at times language to suit the interests of the great powers.  These conflicts have a deep impact on the lives of people who author poetry ,  art and cinema.   Her landscapes may seem childlike but they are intense witnesses of both nostalgia and happiness one imagines of the land to which they were born.  Watercolour is a medium that needs great dexterity.  The command on colour and form-forming is urgent when the brush touches the paper you need to draw with water  or  the images turn to smudges.  Awchat displayed much ability in handling colour and form.  He changed his palette.  

 

Illness in old age is always a transformation. In his later years   Henri Matisse used pre-painted gouache cut-outs to make formidable forms that we seem to remember him with today .  Physical disability allows an artistic mind to find forms that are relentless in their expression.  Subhash has spent time near a lake in Bhor on the Western Ghats of Maharashtra.  This plateau-esque terrain with valleys and a reservoir is stationary in time.  Watercolours from here capture Awchat's view of the Sky as blue.  He sees homes dwarfed under the horizon of the Sun.  His monk-like figures run under colourful buntings that have affinities of form with geometrical abstraction.  We realise how he uses space in his canvases; a particular work divided the paper into a palette of pastels .  He is not using ochre .  Brown is not to be seen .  Bright Yellows ,  Pinks and Light Blues fill spaces where he doesn't find forms.  A social person finally finds in the landscape a form to draw solitude.  

 

I have always wondered what and how artists will depict the pandemic.  We are far beyond the ugly forms of the bacteria that artists drew up during the pandemic .  For me it was a time of deep contemplation , seeking my faults and imagining myself who I would be  if I survived in times when I lost loved ones ,  those were bleak reminders of our mortality.  Subhash Awchat sought solitude ,  he wrote about his mind in newspapers at a time when he had no memory of his childhood.  He is presently reconstructing it through photos sent by friends and stories told to him by his sister.  But his present series of watercolours is a reflection of time,  its structure not measured by a watch but one that is witnessed when we fall humble in a magnificent landscape.  In French we would say ' aquarelles au fils du temps' or watercolours over the passage of time.  

 

Art & Soul Editorial

 

From: 13th October to 15^th November 2022

AU FILS DU TEMPS | OVER A PASSAGE OF TIME

AQUARELLES BY Renowned artist Subhash Awchat

 

 VENUE: 

Art & Soul

11, Madhuli, Shivsagar Estate

Worli, Mumbai – 40018

Contact: (022) 2496 5798/ 2493 0522 / 8080055450

www.galleryartnsoul.com

Asish Kumar Das will be showcased in a solo art show at Jehangir Art Gallery

Recent work of a renowned sculptor from Baroda, Asish Kumar Das will be showcased in a solo art show at Jehangir Art Gallery, Gallery AC-2, M.G. Road, Kala Ghoda, Mumbai 400 001 from 11th to 17th Oct. 2022 between 11 am. To 7 pm.  

Artist: Asish Kumar Das

Baroda based 56 years old, Asish Kumar Das, is one of the outstanding sculptors working in India today especially in the domain of using human figures and animal imageries. Presently we are witnessing in our country the phenomena of projects like installations and such ventures which require collaboration of creative artists as well as technical persons or undertakings where deliberately assembled artists and traditional craftsmen just put together some hybrid patchwork. Amidst such an environment, Asish Das stands out as a multi faceted sculptor who has expertise in all aspects of the bronze casting processes which continues to be his medium for his fascinating, stimulating, captivating, mind arresting sculptures. His works are as much complicated in terms of bronze casting and finishing processes as much as they are intriguing in terms of conceptualization. For an artist with such in depth and subtle creative thinking, it is commendable to observe how he manages to sustain his creative impulses through the long complex technical procedures involved for its concretization or objectification.

Asish Das has intense empathy for the natural animal and human forms so that he does not take recourse to distortions, though he modifies the proportions as required to give them the anticipated elongation, slimness or slight attenuation at the body joints. Consequently his animal and human bodies are graceful with discrete modelling, we as viewers could call them ‘lyrical’ or   ‘sukumar’ , corresponding to the ‘Kaishiki Vritti ‘ of Sanskrit language. However they are also ‘serious’ or ‘solemn’, i.e. ‘Gambhir’ or possessing ‘ Audharya ‘ , dignity. Although apparently Asish Das portrays aspiring human beings engaged with daily existential activities in their lives in this world, yet he does not take recourse to oppressed or suffering imageries. The human figures, their faces, limbs, draperies are very patiently modelled in clay and subsequently “hollow casted” in bronze metal using, “the lost wax” process. This technique is often quite complicated when the sculptural form has additional details, such as projecting elements, which require separate channels for pouring hot molten metal during the casting stage.  Even when he portrays elegantly modelled animal forms, they too reflect the human aspirations theme, by transforming their faces into those of humans.

Actually the human aspirations as Asish’s thematic concern, are also implied in several sculptures in which the human figure is sometimes associated with a bird, thus a bird like form with long beak is attached around the waist of a man (see ‘The Royal Flight’).  Or the man is attempting to fly like a bird, thus he rises on his toes, giving an agile stance to the rising figure. A pair of small metal wings is attached to the shoulders (see ‘The Feminine Upthrust’ ). Alternatively a large pair of wings, shaped in wood planks is hinged with the bronze casted upper back, giving an impression of powerful wings (see ‘The Blissful Draught’ ) . Here we may also draw attention to Asish’s amazing sensitivity  of ‘detailing’ such as an exquisite small bird motif with spread out wings, which are delineated on the human torso and the limbs and given buffed polish, so that they shine like gold,  amidst the contrasting greenish colour of the patina. In the “ Vanquishing Thought – II”, the figure stands on the toe of left leg with raised right leg,  as if the figure is  already air-borne. The spread out arms have the gesture of releasing an arrow from the bow. A thin metal sheet covers part of the groin in the front and spreads behind the back as a foil. This metal sheet is perforated with cut outs of the same bird form in fine contours, creating a pleasant contrast with the glittering bird forms on the body. No doubt to render these motifs with finesse requires special skills, which the sculptor has inherited from the fact that he belongs to a family of jewellers. At the same time, this design motif of the soaring bird has a creative purpose which is metaphorical.

Asish’s ingenious command of the balance in his sculptural forms is marvellously arrived at in the manner the human body is placed horizontally in mid space supported by a spiral form in the circular centre of which is placed the three  dimensional earthly globe ( see “ Frolicking with Nature”).  Another unique example is that of a human figure in dynamic upside down position like that of an acrobat supporting the base or the earthly surface with thumbs of each hand. In this case also spiral form serves as the base ( see “ Bonded with Nature”, bronze and aluminium).

The human figure metaphorically transformed by adding some kind of drapery ( as part of a particular type of costume) along with some details attached to it, thus the associated accessories implying a certain expression or a type of specific character, has been explained by Asish himself, as an unconscious reflection of having seen in his childhood in a Bengal village, the folk actors impersonating a typical character wearing appropriate costume and facial make up, such as long hair and beard. The folk actors are called “ Bahurupi”, thus some of the sculptures comprising of nearly full size human form, are like a “ Bahurupi” impersonating a “ character”. ( see “ I Pave  My Destiny  - III”).

The combination of naturalism and simplicity with a certain eternal calmness of Asish’s sculptural works, also remind of similar qualities in the ancient Egyptian monumental sculptural forms. The easy flow of line along the contours of simplified abstracted volumes of the Sarnath Buddha images of the Gupta period ( 5th and 6th centuries) is a quality of India’s great classical sculptural style, that has apparently been unconsciously absorbed by Asish Das in his sculptural forms. His handling of delicate surface modelling of the human body along with the equipoise of the human form, links his sculptural forms with the early twentieth century Bengali sculptor, Fanendranath Bose, who had been commissioned more than half a dozen sculptures of Indian male and female workers by  the late Maharaja Sayajirao Gaekwad. Asish Das’s work, through the last three decades, has grown and matured consistently in a meaningful direction with surprising variations and creative innovations.

- by Ratan Parimoo

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: 11th to 17th October 2022

“The RHAPSODY 2022”

An Exhibition of Sculptures by Renowned sculptor Asish Kumar Das

VENUE:Jehangir Art Gallery

161-B,  M.G.  Road,

Kala Ghoda, Mumbai 400 001, Timing: 11am to 7pm

Still-life is considered as a work of art depicting mostly inanimate subject matter typically commonplace objects which are either natural or man-made.

Still-life as a subject matter has always interested artists not only to understand the physicality of an object but also how that object becomes an extension of our body and memory. But how does an artist standing at present looks at an object and stillness both physically and conceptually?

 

Santosh's large 7'x9' acrylic on Canvas painting named 'Still life' is a confluence of memories, experiences, and realities. But the question here is what kind of stillness is the artist referring to? Is it just the visual stillness or this stillness is to identify the sudden pause we all are going through. The multiple encounters that the artist is trying to narrate through all these stilled objects and gestures do this lead us towards the stillness before a storm or all these objects with encoded meanings are the result of a huge storm. This large autobiographical painting of Santosh travels between the duality of past/ memories and present/experiences.

 

Artist: Santosh Kalbande / Title : Still Life  Size : 7x9 feet / Medium: Acrylic on Canvas

The artist as protagonist introduces himself in the painting making a gesture of peeping through the spyhole, amplifying the idea of stillness as if the artist is caught in between the action. But what does this gesture of looking suggests? The exertion of looking from a personal/secured space to a public unknown domain adds a sense of tension. This anonymity of who or what is on the other side triggers the theoretical mystery in the painting. This action of peeping from a private to a universal area acts as a metaphor which he repeats multiple times. He tries to bridge and connect his personal and childhood memories of conflicts with the current socio-political situations around him. There is a constant negotiation with inside-outside, memories-experiences, conflict-silence, violence-rights running throughout this painting hidden between each layer. The artist very thoughtfully creates the composition in such a way that the viewer automatically becomes a part of his studio space. The inclusion of audiences makes them the witnesses of the fabricated situation. 

 

The monumental structure of accumulated objects on the right side of the painting draws one's attention in various layers. Our eyes strike at the colorful patches representing godhadi a hand-stitched blanket native to Maharashtra, made by Santosh’s mother during the lockdown. According to Santosh “.… to me, this godhadi shows the diversity of our country and tries to stay together no matter how different we are from each other, but how difficult it is to stay together I realized from the present situation.” Creating godhadi with old used clothes is a very common household practice in our country. But Santosh here refers this act of stitching old memories together to create a new identity and object to build fresh memories as a metaphor. While stitching these layers his mother used to share her experiences of the changing socio-political situations and composed poems that became his inspiration. One can identify the dairy of poems as a part of the still life on top of the chair. It acts like a stage/platform/podium for the homemade kerosene lamp. Using these typical household objects Santosh almost personifies them to narrate the struggle one goes through during a conflict. He also mentions- “The Glass bottles on the chair are from my studio, but after arranging it differently, they started looking scary.” What happens when a simple household object becomes a reason for conflict? What draws attention next is the blood-stained stones inside a transparent glass bottle and the blood splatter on the shirt hanging on the clean and white wall. 

That blood-soaked shirt belongs to his father who unknowingly became a part of the violent mob in the ’80s while Santosh was growing up. The shirt became a memento to represent that memory. He juxtaposes all these tiny motifs from the past with the present events of violence he noticed around him. This occurrence left a deep impact in Santosh’s psyche, as a result, the relationship with these daily life objects has changed into a terrifying memory. The matchbox pack placed below the bottle bomb conveys two stories, one to light the kerosene lamp or two to fire the bottle bomb, which he leaves us to chose. Placing a chair on godhadi he tries to underline the politics of the object- chair and the importance of power structure. There is another jar placed on the table carrying clean stones. Santosh again gives space for his viewers to decide whether the clean stones are washed after being used as a weapon or are waiting to be the next weapon. 

 

The reference of the table on which the whole structure rest is taken from the government office where his parents used to work. He adds “We often go through different experiences on and under the table in a government office”. The experience which he is talking about is hidden under the object. The face of the lion is towards the shadow. According to Santosh, this lion is a representation of the fourth pillar of democracy. He questions the efficiency and importance of the fourth lion by painting it in the form of a soft toy. The almost negligible wire with a socket painted at the background, is a source which brings in both positive and negative information and it's also the only source of connecting the artist with the world during this pandemic. With so much going inside the room the walls one may observe are clean and white. Is this intentional? What does a white cube/space denote? Could it be any space? Could it be your space/story? Have those whitewashed walls buried the evidence of violence? Santosh once again leaves us with this conundrum.  

 

Traveling through Santosh’s large painting, one has to halt at various stoppages to explore the scrupulously navigated metaphors. And as discussed at the very onset of the note the conception of the term still-life is not just limited to being the title rather it is the point of departure.

 

Arpita Akhanda

Santiniketan

2020

@artblogazine

#artblogazine

#mumbaiartist

 

Thus the sculptor Akhil Chandra Das postulates two opposing trends in his expressions. One is violence and the other spirituality.

Recent Sculptures of Akhil Chandra Das

Akhil Chandra Das is a very important sculptor of our country, who evolved his own form during the end part of the decade of 1990-s. Based in Kolkata where he was born in 1968 he has extended his field of work throughout India. An M.V.A. in sculpture from M.S.University, Baroda he has assimilated in his works the traditional indigenous norms with the contemporary global values. He works mainly in mixed media of bronze and wood along with few other mediums. His works are primitivist, fantasy-oriented, very often inclining towards surrealism. Through these formal structures he posits deep-rooted rebellion against social decadence, cultural hypocrisy, exploitation of various kinds by capitalist powers and erosion of moral and social values. He develops his form from his serious commitments, sympathy and love towards humanity. The decadence of human values during the contemporary times disturbs him to the core of sensibility and the pain generated out of it is developed into his sculptural forms.

Artist: Akhil Chandra Das

His first solo exhibition was held at Jahangir Art Gallery in 2002. But his participation in various important group-exhibitions started earlier. He has participated in several group shows like Harmony show, National Exhibition and Time and Material show organised by Aakriti Art Gallery, Kolkata and Art Konsult at Stainless Gallery, New Delhi among others. He participated in Gen Next I and II exhibitions organised by Aakriti Gallery in 2006 and 2007 respectively. He received junior scholarship of Lalit Kala Academy in 1999-2000, Lalit Kala Research Grant, 1995 and National scholarship 1995-1997 and 2000. All these participations and achievements indicate the excellence of his talent as a young artist that has developed to the full during the later course of his progress.

Since the emergence of modernism in Indian sculpture primitive form and technique have played a vital role in devising the identity of sculpture. The works of two pioneering artists in this field, Ramkinkar and Meera Mukherjee are very much exemplary in this context. During the decades of 1940-s 1960-s the sculptors tried to assimilate the indigenous classical forms along with the Western modernist trends. A serious urge to build up an identity through synthesis of local and global values has made the sojourns of our sculpture very significant making our sculptural forms vibrant and unique. During the decade of 1990-s our social values have changed drastically owing to emergence of economic globalisation and assimilation of post-modern world outlook. The forms and expressions of sculptures have also changed considerably since that decade. Conceptualism has turned to be the general trend of expression. Use of multimedia has also been a trend.

The sculptures of Akhil Chandra Das show all these trends of 1990-s. We may look at a few of his works to have an idea of his forms and philosophy. His forms express the agony that the contemporary life contains. Along with this agony there is also an ecstasy to surpass the limits of existential dilemma and to be united with the unbounded expanse of the universe. In one of his works he builds a beast very much disproportionate in physical structures that cries in extreme agony raising its two hind legs. It reveals fantasy that turns to be the symbol of existential pain. A creature with human body and head of a buffalo walks holding a horn of the beast. Here fantasy is transformed towards surrealism. In another piece a calm and contemplative human being stands. His hands are extended to indicate his submission to the divine. There are parts of circular forms scattered throughout his body that may be taken as the symbol of universal infinity.

Violence is expressed in various forms. A semi naked man stands on a wooden platform. He has chopped off his head with his own sword. He holds the sword with his two hands and raises it over his body. On this sword are placed three human heads arranged side by side. This is a form of surrealist fantasy that indicates the severity of violence presented in a plaintive disposition. In another piece a bearded saintly person stands on a platform. His body is covered with a sheet of cloth showing meticulously arranged folds of drapery. In his right hand he holds an ascetic’s bowl, which in Indian terms known as Kamandalu. The saint is proceeding towards worship or meditation. Here is an expression of spirituality very much Indian in nature.

Thus the sculptor Akhil Chandra Das postulates two opposing trends in his expressions. One is violence and the other spirituality. Being very much ingrained in indigenous spiritual values he extends his form towards a kind of rebellion, where he drastically lashes at the rotten reality of the contemporary times. The simultaneous assertion of these opposing values is a unique feature in his expressions whereby he attempts to realise the existential dilemma of the contemporary world.

By Mrinal Ghosh.

28. 09. 2022.

Jehangir Art Gallery

Address: 161B, Mahatma Gandhi Road, Kala Ghoda, Fort, Mumbai, Maharashtra 400001

Hours: Closed ⋅ Opens 11AM Mon

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Contact:

Aakriti Art Gallery

Orbit Enclave, First Floor
12/3A, Picasso Bithi (Hungerford Street)
Kolkata-700 017
Phones : +91 33 22893027, 22895041
Fax No : +91 33 22895042

Website : http://www.aakritiartgallery.com
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