The recent painting exhibition put up by a group of upcoming artists at the State Art Gallery, comprised some good-quality exhibits. Aptly titled ‘Vibgyor’, the group show by the seven artists reflected good groundwork which should help them undertake a purposeful artistic journey. The participants are in a nascent stage, yet the ability to combine their fertile imagination, technical skills and awareness about contemporary art was apparent in their works.

One of the paintings that possesses all these qualities is Searching for Peace. Its compositional beauty is meant to reflect yearning for a peaceful world. The artist, Moumita Ghosh, has drawn an indefinite shape and purposely made it look like the map of India – bathed in blood. Facial contours on its edges, barely recognisable, establish a link to humanity. Dark clouds enveloping this expanse from above and machine guns surrounding it suggest the vicious grip of terror, while the flowers growing on it represent hope and optimism. A simple composition, the painting sums up the issue in a simple and admirable way. Moumita also laments the distortion of love in today’s mechanical world, showing a robot dropping the book Kama Sutra into a garbage bin.

The Trap by Sankar Medhi is an interesting exhibit that shows a giant mousetrap laid in the middle of a huge conference room. In the space within the trap lies a discussion table with chairs around it, while a horde of rodents outside the trap are shown to be moving about the yellow floor, while hammers of justice punctuate this crowd. This whole composition seems to depict the trends of life and times. In another work, a most interesting aspect is the drawing of the deer antlers like trees under which they are shown to be resting. It’s an admirable concept that glorifies the harmony of Nature.

The couple of works exhibited by Gunajit Bhagawati are characterised by sophisticated condensing of thought. Gunajit wants his feeling to be manifest in the central figure existing amid a wide expanse of mono-coloured space, which enhances this condensation. Fashion, where an echo of the method employed by contemporary artists is audible, shows a man staring at the viewer against a flat background of uninterrupted red. The shirt that the man wears is of the same colour and technically, almost merges with the background, while the grey face protrudes from it. The prevalence of red and the motif of fishing hooks designed on the shirt conjure up a subtle comment on our time. The artist’s response to the recent decriminalisation of homosexuality is also shown quite neatly in another work.

Dipankar Deka has displayed a couple of well-made woodcuts, Unbalanced in particular, where a huge sliced egg in the middle with a tiny hatched chick and fork-and-spoon on either side makes it an expressive exhibit. Riju Deka’s Save Us, which shows a medley of chopped off trunks from where a few kites take to the air, highlights environmental hazards created by deforestation. Pranab Das has shown good drawing skills and use of pencil in his work Click, which shows a beautiful maiden being photographed by a man in an aristocratic setting. Bidya Bharati Bhattacharjee has also put up some exhibits that reflect her groundwork, Truculence in particular, which seeks to portray the present conflict-ridden times.

d.bezbarua@yahoo.co.in

Debashish Bezbaruah