Entertainment Desk
Artist Sanjoy Chakraborty has portrayed impact of social and human condition in his first solo show titled ‘Red is Not a Colour’, underway at Dwip Gallery in Lalmatia.
The 14-day exhibition features a total of 40 works, all done in red colour. The exhibition was jointly inaugurated by chairman of Centre for Urban Studies of Dhaka University Professor Nazrul Islam, and fine arts faculty dean Professor Nisar Hossain. Artists-cartoonist Shishir Bhattacharjee was present as special guest.
Nazrul Islam inaugurated the exhibition after his concluding speech after other guests and Dwip Gallery curator Mustafa Zaman took tern in reflecting on the artist and his works.
Sanjoy’s fascination with the colour red has lent his oeuvre a distinct characteristic. The artist’s visualisation of the self in relation to historical religious icons such as Buddha or Siva, his penchant for referring to the five elements such as air, water, earth, sky and light, lends his works an atavistic quality.
An artwork titled ‘Sarcastic Time’, painted with ink on paper, shows a round object, full of spikes, placed at the tip of a man’s tongue. The work portrays how curbing of freedom of speech has only given rise to strange, uneasy situations.
A watercolour painting titled ‘Me and My City’ portrays fascination with urbanisation, while ‘Me and My Village’ depicts man’s apathy towards nature. The works, displayed as a pair, show a city and a village attached to the head of the man depicted. In the former the elements comprising the city are amassed on the face of the male head while in the latter the village scene appears on the back of the head signifying how modernism has triumphed over traditional life.
Besides, the displayed works History Must Die, Dying Image, Art, Politics and Me gives the viewers a glimpse into the anomalies which the current world order has given rise to.
“I draw inspiration from local art, history, culture and tradition. I have observed various chaos, anarchy and occurrences and its consequences to human beings. I have employed the red colour as a tool to narrate my thoughts in my works,” Sanjoy Chakraborty says.
Sanjoy Chakrabarty completed his honours and masters in history of art from Rabindra Bharati University, India. He teaches at department of history of art at DU. The exhibition will end on July 24.