Landscapes predominated the acrylics of three of the four painters who exhibited at Gallery Chemould (January 17-24), with the fourth, Popi Banerjee, fixing her focus on the theme of friendship mainly. Three of her works had two women interacting or conversing, including one intriguingly titled Conjugal. Narayan Karmakar’s four landscapes used the river well, gurgling in one, gushing in another and placid in the third. Anjan Bhattacharyya dabs at nature, with vibrant greens in First Proposal and serene browns in Chaitanya. The most eye-catching exhibits, however, were Tamali Dasgupta’s four landscapes, apart from Assimilation and Leisure done in earlier years. The stylised use of decorative motifs from nature were arresting, with the one using strong deep blues the most effective.
Anil Grover
Because prints are not seen very often — perhaps the market perceives them as poor cousins of paintings — Chaita Basu Jena’s recent solo at Gallery Chemould was refreshing for the textural richness of the works. Although most were etchings, woodcuts were on view, too, to nudge nostalgia with their flavour of childhood publications. The artist says she mines everyday inputs. And, indeed, her delight in portraying dogs and cats is evident: self-indulgent cats, lazy and preening; lean and lively dogs frozen in a leap or a backward flip. But this is also the repertoire of traditional imagery, as are skeletal fish bones, used effectively here. But the most amusing one in her menagerie was an etched boar, coloured with oil and dry pastel and titled Piggy.
Rita Datta
Parampara, an Odissi dance festival, organised by Odissi Dancer’s Forum, Calcutta, was held at Gyan Manch on January 5. Ten dancers, under the guidance of different gurus, performed the traditional items of Odissi repertoire. From mangalacharan, an invocatory number, to abhinaya, an expressionistic item, most of the dancers showed commendable taiyaari. However, they could not transcend the grammatical learning. Rukmini Mukherjee in her ashtapadi Haririha mugdha maintained a fixed expression while Sayantani Ghosh was not ready for stage performance. Rajneeta Banerjee showed a good command over taal and bhangi. As a guru, Kakoli Bose deserves special mention for her student Jayati DuttaGupta’s spontaneous performance.
Sharmila BasuThakur
