A work by Samir Roy

Pure fantasy meets caricature in Samir Roy’s large and small drawings being exhibited at Akar Prakar.

Viewers should be familiar with Roy’s angry-looking birds cycling for their life and a giant squid with wicked eyes standing on end. In his current series, the human and the mechanical become indistinguishable as wheels and pedals grow out of limbs of birds and beasts and humans.

Roy has the rare ability to inject dark humour into his works. A mother with innumerable udders tries to ward off her enormous gnat-like offspring as it tries to dive into her breast. A cycling couple elaborately coiffed makes love on the wheel.

In the darker works in black and white, Roy creates a Homo sapien who is closer to a primate with hairy arms reaching his toes. He has the same lugubrious look as the bird. A lantern sprouts out of the head of a man with a long nose. There is a Gothic quality in his work that is evident not only in the play of light and shadow but also in the curlicues that snake out of his figures.

Unbeknown to him, Roy’s drawings resemble Sukumar Ray’s Abol Tabol and the works of British caricaturists who illustrated the novels of Charles Dickens. But Roy is not acquainted with the latter.

Reed-like Radhas and equally elongated Krishnas are the main ingredients of Dhiraj Chowdhury’s current works being displayed at K2. Of course, he uses a little more colour in some, while some others are practically monochrome.

But in the main it is the love-lorn maid and her flute-playing swain.

The watercolour landscapes with their sweeping brushstrokes are a lot more interesting.

Mohandas N.N. is from Kerala and his paintings being exhibited at Seagull Arts & Media Centre are as serene as the flocks of pigeons he depicts. They are like plump folk toys with beaks pink and neat that sit on rooftops and staircases and do nothing better than bill and coo or else preen.

Mohandas also creates still life with potted plants and objects of everyday use, with perhaps a visiting bird in the foreground, but without any sign of motion. His human beings too are static and inactive like puppets waiting to be brought to life.

Cool grays, blues, black and white, and Indian red are the only colours that he likes to use. These charming paintings create a sense of calm.

Shomi Banerjee is a self-taught artist who is holding a show of his works, which are more like drawings, at Gallery With Difference near Kalighat Metro Railway station. His works are mostly in ink with an occasional dab of paint.

His better drawings like the one of the wobbly house and freak performing over a chair are whimsical in a nice way. Banerjee’s skills come to the fore in his painting of the houses of shadows.

However, his larger and more ambitious works with many human and animal figures are very cliched — of the 1960-70 variety, which has dated quite badly.