A violent love affair with the canvas
Violence is no by-product of modernism or today’s tech-age tools. Only its methods of application have been more sophisticated. Terror is now more organised and a systematic crime. But its seeds were sown since the existence of living species on this planet. Be it domestic, communal, gender, social or political — violence uncontrollably spreads like a wild forest-fire and is a curse upon human civilisation.
Encapsulating different forms of violence in his latest artwork series, poet-writer-globe trotter-travel filmmaker-magazine editor plus a talented painter in his own right, Amarendra Chakraborty has stoked up the topic to draw random reactions from his audiences.
“Violence aggravates in proportion, if not properly checked in time. It gradually threatens to take shape of a terminal disease. True, that in recent times, its frequency appears to have increased by several notches,” comments the artist, whose array of 15 painted specimens was of late showcased at Kolkata’s ICCR.
If current day headlines are anything to go by, then we thoroughly know that most nations become victims of violence through bomb explosions, terror-strikes, insurrections, factional infighting, communal riots, political skirmishes, plane-hijacks, drone attacks, shooting down of aircrafts, ambushes, stone-pelting, border infiltrations, hostage-crisis, invasion of holy religious places of worship or pilgrimage sites and so on. “These are but machinations of militant groups, who are notorious miscreants and march forward as merchants of destruction and death. They purposefully thwart any peace-initiative process or foil attempts to instil values, dreams, love and affection for a stabilised society. With a tendency to disrupt harmony and goodwill among our global populace, these masked-marauders and murderers swear to wage wars every now and then,” he moans.
“On one hand, man takes pride in being the greatest creation of God. Whereas on the other, a dangerous conspiracy is tirelessly at work to detach him from diverse channels of inspiration like music, literature, beauty, art, euphony that make this world such a wonderful place to live in and appreciate about. My heart aches and my mind continuously bleeds to witness these constant onslaughts on humanity,” he laments. That dripping blood of agony further colours his paintings and puts him in the throes of protesting expressions to conjure up an insightful picture. “By birth, man shares an inseparable bonding with the flora and fauna of nature, as well as with his own race. But all this now seems a farce and is forced to fall under a blanket of cold warning before the final doom arrives. Like trees in the face of deforestation and animals in the face of poaching and hunting, man too in the wake of mass carnage, fights hard to save his existential entity,” he elucidates.
By his own confession, painting every night before going to bed offers him a great sense of relief and a goodnight’s sleep. Titles like Relishing a Kill, Suicide, Thirsty Horses, Nocturnal Nature, Attack, Killing Field, Blind Horses, Selfish Bird, Fascism, Indian Style, A Self-blinded Prince, Sand Storm come in a varying range between 18”X24” to 36”X48”. Almost all paintings are done out of acrylic on canvas, except the one carrying Selfish Bird label with a touch of charcoal and pastel shades in it. Depicting a bird swooshing down over a well of water inside a deep forest to quench its thirst, the artist explains that “the painting bears an underlying message of that urge for absolute power and madness. For the bird cautiously keeps the secluded source of water hidden from its peers’ prying eyes. It is in flight with its wings outstretched sideways and the motion is as if creating the sound-effect of its flapping pinions.”
His creations are a burst of his spontaneity. The feelings are naturally discharged. Even the critics admit that there is a clear absence of any pre-meditated scheme or planning in his paintings. The Killing Field shows a site of mass murder with a line of corpses shrouded in white. In another, a string of blind horses is speedily galloping through a blazing field looking immensely wearied, anxious and helpless. In Nocturnal Nature, the painter portrays a menagerie of creatures like dragons, bats, dinosaurs, horses, winged-angels et al, all on their way to either search out their prey or return to their nests. “The night-hour invokes a totally different canvas from the glaring daytime. It is somewhat surreal, dreamy, silent and also sometimes bustles with noisy revelry or illicit activities at shady places,” he deduces. In Suicide, a giant bird with a kite tied to its wings leaps forward on the hills, while a train passes over a railway track amidst a carpet of white cottony kash flowers on either side. In Butterflies, a beautiful scene is straight sculpted out of lush green nature. “Such a serene haven should be an ideal human habitat, far from the madding crowd and selfish politics of this pragmatic world,” he renders.
As of now, talks are on both nationally, as well as at international levels to host this solo exhibition in the near future.