Prabin Kumar Nath and Aditi Chakravarty, a well-known artist-couple, held their latest dual exhibition at the State Art Gallery earlier this month. Done in their individual styles and techniques, their works have delighted art lovers and connoisseurs alike.

The violent times we are living in find expression in many of Prabin’s works, containing images of weapons strewn all over, although they do not constitute an instantaneous reaction. While such happenings, which are directly affecting our lives, have to find artistic expressions in one form or the other, Prabin’s works are not specific to any recent incident, but more an outcome of a prolonged psychological conflict, as they bemoan the vulnerability of humanity as a whole.

In many of his works, colours function as the principal vehicle of expression, which is in the line of abstract art in that they transform a visual-mental experience into descriptive colours, to instantly create a sensation in the soul. This is employed in Encounter-I and II: while the one dominated by surreal blue is a poignant picture of death, the other pits death against an expanse of brilliant green – an abstracted composition showing the stark contrast of a body lying face down in a luxuriant paddy field. The abstraction and the ‘aerial view’ in both the works are meant to express the depth of the artist’s emotions.

Pensiveness is a brilliant work that succeeds in expressing the psychological state through deft use of sad colours and structured composition. Prabin makes a political statement through the chair image in another work, mocking at the incompetence of the powers that be.

Several elements appear, disappear or undergo rapid transformation on his canvases as the artist works at his usual pace, but Prabin does not lose sight of what he had set out for. He is conscious of these changes, eventually contributing to the final message he wishes to convey. Be it the crispy brushwork, wavy strokes or coloured spatial voids, everything serves a purpose. The arrow-heads he uses seem to function variously, from energizing the areas around them to being fill-ins demanded by the work. The vigorous reworking on his canvases appears to be ‘on the surface’, but, under this lie multiple layers of paint, meant to heighten the chances of the colours retaining their luminance for a longer period of time.

Aditi Chakravarty’s paintings, on the other hand, usually revolve around emotions associated with womanhood. Her works weave dream-like imageries which float in the colourful spaces, usually all around a face of a woman dominating the central part of the canvas. The vignettes of life with which she constructs her work, along with the patches and forms of different hues, are little pointers to the emotional observation by the central character – a view of the immediate world through the eyes of a woman. They look like artistic reflections mirroring a profound understanding of life around her.

Images of a child tend to figure in her latest works as she takes a sensitive look at the significance of motherhood, a mother’s divine bond with her child or the growing-up years filled with innocent thoughts and colourful dreams, something that becomes apparent in A Green Day through a boy riding a peacock.

The child image appears in Prabin’s The Divine Power too. The computer-generated works done by both of them manage to transcend the media and emerge as genuine works of art.

Both Prabin and Aditi did well in their respective domains. While Prabin came across as a man of the world, treating subject-matters having enough social implications, Aditi’s world, innately personal, dealt with emotions of universal appeal.

d.bezbarua@yahoo.co.in

Debashish Bezbaruah