When art lovers and artists speak of Bengali art, we always think of artistic diversity the state has today in the form of traditional handicrafts, masks, paintings, carvings, dance and music. But as times have changed, art in Bengal has also moved along with the times.
In order to showcase how far the Bengal Art Scene has come, Gandhara Art Gallery organised an art exhibition titled “Art: Bengal Now” at the Dhoomimal Art Centre. On display are artists; Ganesh Halo, Lalu Prasad Shaw, Jogen Chowdhury, Partha Pratim Deb, Aditya Basak, Jayashree Chakravarty, Jaya Ganguly, Chandra Bhattacharjee, Debnath Basu, Indrapramit Roy, Chattrapati Dutta, Samindranath Majumdar, Paula Sengupta, Prasanta Sahu, Adip Dutta, Arindam Chatterjee, Debraj Goswami, Amritah Sen, Jayanta Roy, S. K. Sahajahan and more.
In the occurring the absorbent vastness of celestial space of lndrapramit’s painting little specs of illuminations are like signals of safe arrivals after durations of anxiousness.
“It is the use of contrasting darkness-and-light as conjoint signifiers of natural and pictorial space, of nocturnal and diurnal time, and of amorphous and finite space. Although this visual linguistic input is present in the outputs of the artists we have so far discussed, it is of cardinal importance in the works,” says Roy.
Even the multitude of the seeming abstract reconstructions of Ganesh Haloi is borne of an anxious wish to transcend the existing urban chaos to an imagined serene past, in minimalist formal terms; the conceived flight takes one back to mild lands predicted by the rhythmic arrangement of occupying suspended lines.
Ganesh Haloi further adds, “It is a journey from certainty to uncertainty, from known to unknown, from present to absent, from visible to invisible, from here to nowhere.”
Jaya Ganguly's human characters are pathetically beaten beings. she further talks about her work and says “My work symbolises an inquiry into the ‘unspoken’ depths that engulf a woman’s life, like those who have to deal with their orthodox backgrounds or those who have a placid existence.
