The Kolkata-based painter’s
work is like a multi-hued patchwork
quilt stretching from one canvas
to another, in undulating, swirling lines
The end goal in life is clear for Nabakishore Chanda. “The day I discover I have done my masterpiece, I’ll stop painting,” he says. And, until that momentous occasion arrives, he will continue to infuse life into lines, colour into gaps and meaning into images. And show them off to the world.
A faculty member of the Sri Vivekananda College in Kolkata, Nabakishore is in Hyderabad to exhibit his paintings at the Pegasus Art Gallery. A self-taught artist, Nabakishore’s artistic journey began in a remote village in West Bengal, as a child who dipped into ink to draw his first perceptions of life around him. “Some of my contemporaries, critics and artists, suggested that I should not seek training so late since it would corrupt my flow. But I practise, study art books and do model study. Great artists, of course, are my inspiration too,” he says.
This is the first time that Nabakishore is showing his work in Hyderabad but he has held many solo and group exhibitions before, since 2003. He has a series of shows planned in the coming months, including two more in Hyderabad.
The image of a woman is predominant in almost all his paintings. “Woman is genesis. The mother, the wife, the daughter. Life for me begins and ends with a woman.” Everyday images are his forte, captured in strong lines and earth tones. The images stand out as stark statements on first look and then melt into abstraction with the second. Watercolours on paper, acrylic on canvas and bold use of ink lines and hatching are the aspects of his technique.
Though the paintings are mainly steeped in rural milieu, the occasional urban study captures the angst as well as the bland anonymity of city life with equal impact.
Bengal’s patachitra in vegetable colours is what influenced him most. “My art did not happen just one fine morning. It has been a journey and I absorb and take impressions and influences with me as I travel,” the artist says. He believes whatever he has seen of Andhra and Hyderabadi Deccani art as well as his impressions of Hyderabad will reflect in his work somewhere down the line.
The 44-year-old artist, who is a sculptor too though he is yet to display his work, laments the loss of rocks in and around Hyderabad. “Yet, the city draws me, may be because it is different from Kolkata. Or may be it is an entirely new imagery,” Nabakishore says.
By Usha Revelli
