(From top) Two lithographs on paper by Somenath Hore depicting famine-stricken people done in 1978, now displayed at Galerie 88. A mixed-media work by Reba Hore, one of the 300 sketches and paintings by the Santiniketan-based artist being shown at the Seagull Arts and Media Resource Centre

Living in seclusion in Santiniketan, Reba Hore is not a very visible figure on India?s art scene. Belonging as she does to a family of eminent artists, she is actually more heard of than seen.

After a long break, a large exhibition of 300 of her mixed-media works and terracotta figures opens at the Seagull Arts and Media Resource Centre on Thursday. These are mostly sketches whose hallmark is spontaneity, although if one scrutinises them one would realise that they were not done at the spur of the moment. They may seem to have been done effortlessly but that, more than anything else, is evidence of her command over her medium.

As she has said, painting is like breathing to her. It is the reason for her existence. With a couple of hasty but unerring strokes of pastel she gets the form of a house, human figures or a colourful bouquet of flowers just right. Often akin to doodles in their simplicity, they are full of exuberance, surprising in an artist of her age and frail state of health.

The colours she uses are fresh and reflect the energy of her drawings. She uses reds, orange, greens and yellow with great abandon, often tempered with black and brown.

Many of these works hover halfway between abstract and figurative, but it is easy to make out the clusters of human beings, faces registering a spectrum of emotions, shadowy figures, the river gushing through its bed, clumps of trees and children at play with colourful balloons.

There is a suggestion of form but it is not clearly delineated. The viewer?s imagination fills in the void.

Her series on cockerels, cats and street dogs is quite remarkable and is a joy to behold. Her mysterious and often cantankerous cats remind one of the writings of Colette, who tried to look through their mystique and unaccountable behaviour. Reba Hore?s cats slink cautiously or burst into a temper, eyes burning like Catherine wheels. They could have been out of a cartoon strip.

Her cockerels rule the roost, fluttering their wings, crowing and raising their hackles or they lie in a heap along with other poultry in a huge basket waiting to be transported to the market. She has a keen eye for detail revealed in her depiction of these masses of fluff, full of hot air like so many human beings we know.

Reba Hore?s curs are lonely forlorn creatures that don?t need the moon to bay at. They howl to chase their blues away, craning their scrawny necks. Like humans they huddle together for companionship.

Fear is the key to Reba Hore?s series on riots. Executed in 2002, these grey faces with eyes popping out of their sockets are living a nightmare. Others exchange conspiratorial whispers. A woman leaning over could have been a Degas figure, so graceful is her posture.

Reba Hore depicts man?s inhumanity without actually gloating over bloodshed and mayhem. Similarly, in 1978 Somenath Hore had evoked the horrors of a famine by creating figures of immense beauty wracked and distorted though their skeletal forms are with the pangs of hunger or as they are about to give up their ghost. Viewers get a chance to see these stark and unsentimental lithographs at the current exhibition of prints at Galerie 88.

In one of Somenath Hore?s lithographs, a group of people who could not have seen food in days, stand in a row in what seems to be in a contemplative mood. One of them has raised his hand above his head. They seem to have moved beyond despair.

The other participants are Sanat Kar, Dipak Banerjee, Krishna Reddy and Lalu Prasad Shaw. Sanat Kar?s early prints are the most interesting. Eyes set between a proboscis glimmer in an engraving on sunmica. In an etching on paper dating back to 1971, areas of acid green form a counterpoint to grey space. His later works depicting ectoplasmic figures are sweet and sentimental.

Dipak Banerjee uses tantric and ?Hindu? symbols in his colourful works. While they look highly exotic one cannot help wondering about the relevance of such symbolism to contemporary lives.

An imaginary Oriental script takes visible form in Lalu Prasad Shaw?s lithographs. These supple calligraphic flourishes in black and white are lovely like trees in spring. They are lush in spite of their rigid structure.

Shaw brings out the richness of colour etching in the patterned coat with its arms stretched out. Although this artist is better known for his babus and bibis, here he shows his mastery in printmaking. It is a pity that collectors in our country still confuse these prints with those done commercially.