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| Neelpawan Baruah: Marathon innings |
Guwahati, Dec. 18: Artist Neelpawan Baruah has a linear dream. In fact, it is exactly 382 km long.
The veteran artist wishes to hold a roadside exhibition of 400,000 paintings that will stretch from Guwahati to Gargaon, the last capital of the Ahom kingdom, in Sivasagar district.
So far, Baruah has completed 36,000 paintings out the 400,000 and hopes to complete the remaining within his “lifetime”.
This dream project, tilted “Paintings of the Millennium”, now takes up most of Baruah’s waking hours, for he is aware of the “task at hand”.
“It is something I have set out to do. And we human beings live on hope. So I am looking at a realistic possibility of completing the project,” he told The Telegraph.
Through the project, the artist aims to “look at life from different angles, from a different perspective”.
“It has been my constant attempt to look at the different colours of life through my paintings. I also want to see if I can create some awareness on art among the people, just like a pebble creates ripples when thrown into a pond,” said the septuagenarian artist.
Winner of the Pranab Barua Art Award and the Bishnu Rabha Award instituted by the state government, Baruah created a record of sorts by painting 2,000 drawings and 2,000 paintings in 2000.
He is also known for his experiments in art on cigarette packs, cards and calligraphy on newsprint.
Born in Teok near Jorhat in Upper Assam, Baruah shifted to Guwahati at a very young age with his parents and has been a resident of the capital since then.
Now almost a recluse, the Pablo Picasso of Assam divides his time between looking after his ailing wife — singer Dipali Barthakur — and working on his 382-km-long project.