Chandana Hore’s paintings titled ‘New Works 2005’ at the Seagull Arts and Media Centre convey a gloomy feeling, as if everything is on the verge of decay. Her images are strong, slightly distorted, stylised and set in a sea of undulating layers of paint. There are three major colours that declare themselves in harsh contrast. The phosphorescent glow of her initials at the bottom left adds to the fantasy of shipwreck and death in the billowy ocean of life. Hore has used not only the brush or spatula but also squeezed paint out directly from the tube. This unrestrained emotionalism has occasionally rocked the compactness of the compositions. The intimate scenes are a commentary on human predicaments.
Sandip Sarkar
The indelible impression of the partition continues to haunt our poets. An evening of poetry dedicated to the memory of Manjush Dasgupta also witnessed an overwhelming feeling of pessimism holding the sway. Organised by the Manjush Dasgupta Smriti Samsad at Jibanananda Sabhaghar (September 12), the reading session had, among others, Nirmal Basak empathising with the agony and ecstasy of a group of refugees, Brindaban Das offering an antidote to Jibanananda Das’s joyous celebration of pastoral Bengal. On the other front, Ramkishor Bhattacharya’s picturesque romanticism struck the naturalist chord. Short story session featured some insightful nuggets of middle class anxieties a la Banaphool. Apurba Dutta’s verse on the daydream of a cricket freak got the funny bones tickling.
Anshuman Bhowmick
‘Burnt Sienna’ at Gallery Kanishka has 29 works by Nabendu Sengupta. Most of the works are very small, etched and painted reliefs, while a few others are free-standing sculptures. Sengupta has tried to adhere to the concepts of eye-level painting. His idea of this type of a composition is not that clear. Most of the works are centrally composed and leave no breathers around the basic shapes. In Gajanan, Sundari 1 and Sundari 2, the absence of spatial interlude upsets the composition. Chokh is a slightly tilted portrait of a youth which has enough space to balance the form. In spite of the weakness of the form and content admixture, Sengupta’s technical understanding of terracotta is of a high order. But he should know that beyond craftsmanship there lies aesthetic excellence.
SS
