The flow of life in nature, Solo Exhibition of Shampa Sircar Das

Ved Prakash Bhardwaj

Shampa Sircar Das's solo exhibition titled Pravah, curated by Anu Bajaj, opens at Sridharani Art Gallery, Delhi on 4th April. This exhibition can be seen till April 14. The exhibition is organized by Gallery Art Positive. It includes paintings as well as some sculptures of Shampa. Shampa has been identified as an artist who portrays spiritual experiences and natural beauty. The aesthetic side of his art is so strong that the ideological light behind it gets hidden. Shampa's art is also a search for the meaning of nature and the presence of all living beings including humans in it. It also indicates how our relationship with nature is and how it should be. This exhibition is an expression of the flow of life in nature.

If you look at the pictures included in this exhibition, along with humans, deer, elephants, lions, peacocks, fish, birds are all part of a beautiful natural environment. This is an indication that nature attains perfection only with all living beings, on the other hand all living beings can also exist only under the shelter of nature. Here the artist has not given any kind of direct message, indirectly there is a big message in these pictures. The ill-effects of the manner in which man has mindlessly destroyed nature for his selfishness have come to the fore. Today the whole world is talking about environmental crisis, talking about the balance of life with nature. This is what Shampa says through her art.

To give a simplistic interpretation of Shampa's art would be unfair to him. If we are limited only to the natural beauty, to the brightness of the colours, then we will not be able to understand these paintings in their entirety. Shampa and her husband Sanjay Das, a creative photographer, travel a lot. Sanjay captures such scenes with his camera which demand wider social discussion. What Sanjay does with the camera, Shampa does with colors on the canvas. The Buddhist monasteries and Thanka paintings of Leh-Ladakh not only influenced her work, but also gave him a different direction. On one hand the experiences of Ladakh take shape in Shampa's paintings, on the other hand the life struggle of women from Bihar, Bengal and other places gives him the power to think of painting differently. She does not take women's struggle as a slogan but takes it as a creative side of life. Shampa's childhood was spent in Delhi exposed to Bengali culture, as well as her schooling influenced by Sri Aurobindo's philosophy which she still believes in today. After doing MFA, Shampa had to keep himself away from art due to family reasons. There was a long struggle in life and he kept distance from art for about seven years. In 2002, Shampa turned to art again and started a new life with canvas. She was not able to satisfy herself even after participating in group exhibitions. Then in 2003 she went to Leh and Ladakh with Sanjay. The natural beauty of the mountains and the spiritual atmosphere of Buddhist monasteries as well as thanka paintings inspired him. Returning from there in 2003, she did an exhibition titled Tatva. After that, this process continued for the next three years. The golden color of thanka paintings and Buddhist monasteries, the gray and white colors of mountains and the red color of spiritual energy became prominent on her canvas. We also find images of words written on the walls of monasteries in the paintings of that time.

If you look at the paintings included in this exhibition, many images of Buddhist monasteries and Thanka paintings have been used in them. Apart from this, figures like meditating monk and nun are also here. The presence of deer in these paintings has a special significance. Deer are considered to be very beautiful yet gullible creatures, just like nature. She also uses the lotus flower to reveal the beautiful and soft element of nature. The frequency of blue color in these paintings gives a sense of the purity of water and sky. Golden and red colors are still dear to Shampa. With metallic colors, she creates a new aura in the picture. Her painting process is different. She creates texture by first applying two-three layers of colors on the canvas. After that she starts creating shapes on it. In this way, many colors together become like a musical tune.

Jogen Chowdhury retrospective show

Ved Prakash Bhardwaj

Jogen Chowdhury is a senior and important artist of our times. Jogen Chaudhurys name is included among the artists who contributed the most in giving an ideological basis to contemporary art. A retrospective exhibition of his art journey of over 6 decades opened on 8 March 2023 at Bikaner House, Delhi, organized by the Art Exposure Gallery, Kolkata. The curators of this exhibition are Jesal Thackar and Shoumik Nandy Majumdar. This is such an exhibition only after seeing it we can get acquainted with the world of a great artist like Jogen Chowdhury. Along with realistic human depiction, how his art has reached its present form through abstract paintings, can be understood from this exhibition. The suffering of human, his anomalous social position, and his life amidst systemic conflicts is the essence of Jogen Chowdharys art. About 350 paintings and drawings are on display in the exhibition, many of which are being seen by most people for the first time. Many art collectors present at the opening of the exhibition were also heard complaining about why the works were not shown to them earlier.

Born in 1939 in Faridpur, Bengal,  Jogen Chowdhury studied at the Government College of Art and Crafts, Kolkata, from 1955-60, followed by a stint at L'Ecole Nationale Superior des Beax-Arts, Paris, in 1965-57 on a French Government Scholarship. Afterward, he spent five months in London. He returned to India in early 1968. He was appointed as a textile designer on the Handloom Board in Chennai. In 1970, he joined the Calcutta Painters Group. His first collection of poems Hridoy Train Beje Othey was also published in the same year.

He quit his job at the Madras Handloom Board in 1972 to join the Art Gallery of Rashtrapati Bhavan, New Delhi as a Curator. Due to this new job, he moved to New Delhi. He founded the Gallery 26 and Artists' Forum in New Delhi in 1975 along with some leading painters of New Delhi. In 1986, Jogen represented India in the 'Festival of Art' in Baghdad.

In 1987, Jogen Chowdhury joined Kala Bhavan, Santiniketan as a professor of painting. Besides his numerous paintings and exhibitions, he has written extensively on contemporary art. He was also appointed as Judge in several exhibitions.

His recent solo exhibitions include 'A Calligraphy of Touch and Gaze', presented by Kalakriti Art Gallery at ICIA, Mumbai, in 2008; and Abahoman: Flowing Life at Vadehra Art Gallery, New Delhi, in 2007. Chowdhury has also had solo exhibitions at Gajah Gallery, Singapore; Gallerie Foundation for Indian Artists, Amsterdam; and the Fine Art Resource, Berlin.

 

 Dramatic, uninterrupted strokes and lines are merged to form and grip human figures in the works of Jogen Chowdhury. He is known for his honest portrayal of humans in unaccepted social conditions and their pain, an innate part of human existence. Although prolific in various mediums, such as ink and pastel, watercolor, oil, and pen, the bulk of Jogen Chowdhurys artworks feature unbroken, meandering lines in ink and pastel. The distorted human figures in his artworks stand out in overpowering, unfaltering lines across the canvas, giving him the label master of unbroken lines.

Jogen Chowdhury's hallmark is the elaboration of unusual meanings out of ordinary shapes. He uses local references in his art but in the final conclusion of the composition, it becomes a narrative of the universal condition of man. Epoch consciousness is an essential element of his creative world that separates him from other artists. While composing with a time reference, he gives a global basis to the composition. Early in his art, the influence of the Bengal School is visible, but his later works create a global atmosphere while maintaining a local identity.

Jogen Chowdhury expresses his culture as well as the social conditions of his time in his art. Sometimes, there is also a sense of sarcasm indirectly in his work. In the words of Shakti Burman, Jogen's work is simple but beautiful. This applies to his drawings which have a simplicity of line which is beautiful. The distortion in his art expresses the anomalies of our times.

In the beginning, Jogen Da did a lot of figurative work. In that period, human figures are simple in painting as well as in drawing, but in them, we get a glimpse of the future of Jogen Chowdhury. The densest moments of human suffering appear in them. His experiences of the Partition of Bengal in the early period can be seen in these paintings.

Initially, Jogen was associated with the Communist Party, but he was not directly involved in politics. Connecting with the condition of the common man at the level of sensitivity brought him closer to the communist movement. This association is visible in the work of many Bengali artists who were his contemporaries, but for Jogen, ideology and social commitment remained at the level of art, separate from politics. The result was that he was more conscious and experimental about form. His experimentation with form can be clearly seen in the gradual change in his art.

To understand Jogen Chowdhury's art, you must first understand those dimensions of our society which have hidden layers of inequality, violence, and injustice. As a socially conscious painter, Jogen sees those layers and expresses them in his paintings in a way that is not limited to any one context. Jogen's art is not free of context. He also says that I keep an eye on the social and political conditions of the country and the world along with the people around me. In fact, keeping this view also includes the analysis of those situations, the final form of which we can see in Jogen's paintings. Jogen's art demands thought as well as viewing. If you leave his paintings and drawings only at the level of a visual experience, then believe me, you will never reach the real meaning of his art. The more beautiful his art looks at the level of invisibility, the more disturbing it is at the conceptual level. Just as poetry contains multiple meanings, Jogen's work also contains multiple dimensions of meaning. For example, we can take one of his paintings in which a man is seen cutting a woman's chest and abdomen with a knife. This picture is not limited to the violence of men against women. A fetus is visible in the womb of a woman in the picture. Now if this picture is seen in symbols and other meanings apart from just action, then it also indicates female feticide, it also indicates future murder, and it also expresses the suicidal violence of man against the earth. Many such references go on to add to this picture. And this happens not with many of Jogen's paintings, but with most of them. Jogen Chowdhury has been identified as a figurative artist but it is not that he has not created abstract paintings. This exhibition includes many of his abstract paintings and drawings. The force of the brush strokes in a similar large painting reveals the impulse of a sensitive artist amidst the socio-political conditions of the time. Many such pictures and drawings are in this exhibition. By the way, the presence of abstract structures can also be seen in his figurative works. The concreteness which appears as a shape on the surface turns into abstraction at the level of emotion and thought.

A single line is mysterious and when it establishes a relationship with other lines and gives birth to a form, the same mystery becomes deeper. A shape does not allow the analogy to remain mysterious, but Jogen turns this analogy into a mystery. The human figure emerging on the canvas transforms this analogical image into a mystery with its gesture. In this, the artist takes the symbolic marking planted in the original shape away from the meaning of the surface to the world of meanings that are hidden in some mystery layers. The viewer can access these mysteries through his own consciousness and experience. In this way, Jogen raises the possibility of the active participation of the viewer in his art. In a way, he demands participation from the viewer in his art. You can't just look at his paintings as a simple visual descriptions, and if you do, you're sure to miss their real meaning. Jogen's art does not expect a viewer to merely be seen but solicits thought. That's why the art value of his paintings is higher than the market value of the artwork.

Initially, the forms in his paintings were more simple which later changed due to distortion. This change gave more effective expression to his social sensibilities. His passion for poetry became his assistant in this. The poetry of Jivananand Das impressed him more. This gave him a more transparent and realistic view of society and time.

The style of the cross-hatch gave a new dimension to his art. This helped him to more effectively express the true state of man with his mood. In his art, he later gave more importance to lines instead of colors. Apart from the works of the crosshatch, which are his pastel, charcoal, etc. drawings, lines are the main ones.

This exhibition includes his own portraits. Apart from this, there are many other personal pictures in which the expression of emotions is the main. The reclining figure in an old painting shows that humans doubled over by suffering began to be expressed in his art from the very beginning. He also says that I keep an eye on my surroundings as well as the social and political situations of the country and the world. That's why in his art we get an indication of the activities happening not only around us but also in distant countries. He does not show public events directly. He simply creates something in a picture that reminds us of several events at once. The status of women in society and the violence against them cannot be targeted in many of his paintings.

Many of his sketchbooks have been displayed in this exhibition. Looking at these sketchbooks, one can understand his process of producing a painting or drawing. One can understand from these sketchbooks how many sketches one goes through before a painting is made.