A childhood brush with Mother Nature defines painter’s works

Mother Nature plays her creative muse. And she wholeheartedly surrenders her aesthetic self to its beauty, silence, desolation, mood swings, emotions, colour, texture, variety and many such other attributes that one may think of. Thus Inner Out was born, when her innate feelings found an unhindered, spontaneous splurge on the canvas with landscapes and seasides governing the frames. Artist Sujata Saha dished out the same in her recent solo exhibition held at the prestigious art gallery of Triveni Kala Sangam, 205, Tansen Marg, in the national capital.

The oil-on-canvas specimens thus bore thought-provoking titles like The Melancholy River, The Road to Nowhere, Into the Wind, Whispering Waves, On the Shore of Silence, Silent Wings, Alone with my Missing Weaves, The Earth has Music or Golden Horizon, Where No One Seems to be Around, etc, and quite expectedly raised a vein of curiosity in the minds of viewers about the talented painter’s sensitivity and consciousness.

“Purush and prakriti sha-re an uncanny resemblance in terms of psychology. Therefore, I can easily equate a human soul with nature’s seasonal changes,” she elucidates. “We can feel happy, lively, angry, sombre, indolent, lost or engrossed at any time of the day, depending on prevalent circumstances and the weather. Similarly, our surrounding nature may also react differently or wear different looks in varying seasons of the year. The diversity of nature, as in hot, cold, humid, snowy or dry spells, reflect the mutable graph of human emotions and feelings,” she further explains.

The earthiness and vibrancy of her palette prod her to choose natural hues like red, yellow, brown, green, blue or white to dapple in her art with. Having presented her first show in Delhi, Saha wishes to continue with her nature series and keep adding to it. With 21 pieces on board, the collection ranged from 12’X12’ to 57’X36’ in size with reasonable prices tagged along for sale. Though the curve for oil pigments usually shows an expensive bend with sufficient time-consumption to lend a perfect polishing finish, the paintings however never fail to live up to their promise of being alive and attractive with oil tones. After application, the brilliant shades appear as molten wax, making the work more authentic to the eye.

The artist’s association with nature dates back to her childhood days when she grew up in the little idyllic hamlet of Kashipur, in Purulia district of West Bengal. “Bits of the red soil, parts of a rocky terra firma, lush paddy fields, irrigated plots, fluffy white clouds floating across the blue sky, parched, sun-burnt, arid zones — all form a considerable part and parcel of my artistic conscience,” she fondly shares. “You see, the villages are gradually coming in greater proximity to flourishing city life and in the process, losing their own raw appeal and innocence. Progress is important and inevitable. Communication is necessary but nothing is desirable at the cost of purity and simplicity,” she underscores.