Anil Sinha delivers lecture during a programme organised at Bihar Club in Ranchi on Monday. Picture by Hardeep Singh

Installation artist Subodh Gupta, whose works are as much at home in London’s Tate gallery as in Guggenheim Museum, New York, is a Patna boy.

Many global artists doing remarkable work have their roots in Jharkhand and Bihar, revealed Kala Vimarsha, a lecture-presentation event organised by Lalit Kala Akademi (Bhubaneswar regional centre) at Bihar Club, Ranchi, on Monday afternoon.

Anil Sinha, an artist and art critic from Patna, who showed slides of the work of visual artists hailing from both the states, annotated snippets on where each was working at present.

The list of painters, sculptors and installation artists was indeed impressive.

From Jharkhand, the names included Haren Thakur, Dinesh Singh, Himadri Ramani, Ramanuj Shekhar, Amitabha Mukherjee, C.R. Hembrom and Dilip Toppo.

From Bihar were Shyam Sharma, Bireshwar Bhattacharya, Milan Das, Sikha Sinha and of course Subodh Gupta, who recently put up a stainless steel installation at Patna sponsored by the government on the occasion of its centenary statehood year.

Though Sinha’s compilation is useful as a ready reckoner, some visitors were disheartened at the lack of detail at an event that promised much more than a laundry list of artists.

“Sinha during his presentation did not elaborate on the style of each artist. He skipped the slides with just an encouraging word or two. The event, named Kala Vimarsha, was a misnomer without discussion,” said an art buff.

Local artists, however, spoke unanimously on the need of a Lalit Kala Akademi in the state.

“Home-grown talents have migrated to metros in India and abroad as they got patronage there. Had there been infrastructure here, many could have stayed on and made their presence felt from their hometowns,” commented a member of the audience.