The denizens of Beena Pradhan?s private world are full-bodied, strongly-sexed, dark women (Academy of Fine Arts). The darkest part of their body is the face, the repository of feminine enigma in the most inscrutable manifestation. Painted in acrylic on canvas, the dark woman (in picture) appears almost nude against the faint outline of a male onlooker craving for carnal fulfilment. Pradhan?s idea of pictorial space is free but not overstretched. She has a remarkable facility with the brush and is able to use the white colour as a space extender and heightener of the body language to make her compositions aesthetically interesting. She is no run-of-the-mill women?s lib protagonist, the reason why her visual frames are unladen with extra-artistic innuendoes.

Although the ?Bull? series remains Shyam Kanu Borthakur?s piece de resistance, especially when drawn elaborately in conte on paper, his recent oeuvre, shown at the Academy?s North Gallery, included thematically disparate items of no less interest. His series titled ?Body and the Birds? reveals masculine grace and vigour in a new light. He uses acrylic in this series with rare dexterity, fusing beauty with animality, extending his favourite theme beyond the two-dimensional format. Joyita Borthakur?s oil and acrylic works mostly involved technically good feminine facial expressions.