Kolkata, Mar 20 (IBNS): A giant canvas captures a communist patriarch’s body wrapped in red, encircled by left leaders with their left arms missing.
Everyone in the painting is identifiable, from the deceased Jyoti Basu to the mourning Prakash Karat and Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, the stalwarts of the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) facing a tough assembly election in West Bengal.
The missing left arms of the leaders is nothing abstract that only eggheads can comprehend. It deciphers for everyone the depleting strength of the communists in West Bengal, especially after the death of patriarch Jyoti Basu, as seen by the painter.
The painting ahead of the elections at an exhibition of rabid anti-left artist Shuvaprasanna is controversial, brusque and punches shock values, but the creator says it has got nothing to do with the polls.“The date for this exhibition is scheduled for one year. It is this time and moment that we need to realize and this is not concerned with election. Neither it is done by keeping anything in mind,” he claims speaking to IBNS.
“I am conscious about time and society. And through my sensibility I try to portray my pictures,” he comments about his exhibition.
He said that he has tried to showcase the contemporary time and moment through his works.
“It has a different language and people have to realize them by their own thoughts and feelings,” he said.
The exhibition features portraits of Rabindranath Tagore and several animals sketched by the painter, who is famous for his series on the crows and other birds like pelican and eagle in the 1980s.
The ace painter has mostly used mixed mediums on canvas and paper in his evocative works.
Danseuse Priti Patel and academician Bharati Ray were present at the inauguration.
(Photos by Avishek Mitra)