Not many in Assam are probably aware that an artist hailing from Lakhimpur is making waves in international art circles and doing Assam proud through her works and art-related activities. She is earning rave reviews not just in Norway, where she lives, but also in several other countries where she has held her exhibitions. She has displayed her works in US, Russia, England, Italy, Spain, China, Denmark, Argentina, Ecuador and Lithuania, apart from Norway. As recently as in April 2009, she held her solo show in Mumbai, at the Nehru Art Centre Gallery. Titled ‘Between Reality & Dream’, the exhibition won rich accolades.

Meet Mamta … Mamta Baruah Herland, who grew up at Laluk in Lakhimpur district and went on to become a respected artist of Norway, where she has been living since 1987 after her marriage to Geir Herland. She was born to late Upendranath Baruah and late Annada Baruah of Lakhimpur, both of whom passed away when she was quite young.

Mamta obtained her master degree in Fine Arts from the Winchester School of Art, University of Southampton, England. She learnt Graphic Design at Merkantilt Institutt, Oslo, and Visual Arts in the Sydney College of Art, University of Sydney, Australia.

Mamta has been the Head of the Board, Artists Association in Baerum, Norway, since 2007. She has been a board member of Asker Art School, Norway since 2006, and of Bærum Kommunenes Fellesrad, Norway, since last year. During 2005-08, she was a board member of the Visual Artists Organisation in Oslo and Akershus. She has also served the Association of Norwegian Visual Artists, Association of Norwegian Painters, Visual Artists Organisation in Oslo and Akershus and Artists Association in Baerum. 

The brightest jewel in Mamta’s crown is a huge, state-of-the-art gallery that she has established in Oslo, which is reportedly the biggest gallery in all of Europe.

Mamta employs various techniques in her art. Her acrylics are a combination of naturalistic and abstract expressions. The artist also experiments with a wide range of mediums like digital printmaking, photography and video. She uses technology as a collaborator and what emerges from her work is her emotions and lived experiences. Her digital works succeed in transcending the medium and evoke a sense of mysticism. The images in her paintings allude to the blurred boundaries of rationality and magic, dream and reality, emphasising a shift from the domain of rationality to a higher plane of utopian dream. Mamta has tried to make digital printmaking an effective language of self-expression and some art connoisseurs in and outside her adopted nation have already hailed her as someone epitomising the very future of digital art. The agony of being orphaned so early in life appears in her works from time to time.

Apart from art and art-related activities, it is Mamta’s love for India, particularly Assam, which is truly heartening. She is still very much in touch with the land of her birth. She is one of those who take enormous pride in the fact that they are Assamese in heart and soul. Mamta loves India, and during her April exhibition in Mumbai, she revealed that she finds the brilliant colours of India extremely inspiring.

Mamta now evinces a keen interest in holding an exhibition in Assam sometime in the future. What better way than to feel nostalgic in the midst of her own people and interact with them through works of art? We hope this dream of Mamta too gets fulfilled, and gives another dimension to her persona as an artist from Assam tasting runaway success abroad.

d.bezbarua@yahoo.co.in

Debashish Bezbaruah