Friday , March 18 , 2011

Politics with an edge on canvas - No longer a spectator to suffering, artist protests through paintings

SOMAK GHOSHAL

Shuvaprasanna in front of one of his works to be displayed at CIMA Gallery from March 18 to April 14. (Aranya Sen) Painting and politics go hand in hand for the artist Shuvaprasanna, whose exhibition of recent works opens at CIMA Gallery on Friday. Apart from a set of flora and fauna executed in the artist’s signature style and some portraits of Tagore and Gandhi, there are a number of large-format paintings in this show based on political themes. In one, prominent leaders of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) are seated around a table bearing a corpse, presumably of an iconic leader from a bygone era, draped in the familiar red cloth. The menacing edge of the work is heightened by the fact that all the leaders have their left hand missing. In another, a lady in a white sari plays the flute as she is trailed, like the piper of Hamelin, by a group of men and animals. Although the inspiration behind these works may be pretty obvious, the artist prefers to qualify his art somewhat differently. “I am not a politician,” says Shuvaprasanna, “though I am a firm believer in democracy”. With a successful career spanning several decades, he has seen West Bengal go through many ups and downs. “For years, the people of this state were almost unwittingly reconciled to political tyranny,” he says. “Very few had the courage to criticise political power.” Shuvaprasanna says that he has made many “journeys” as an artist, experimenting with styles and soaking in a range of influences from the life around him. He has been a spectator to suffering from his earliest years. As a child, he spent hours at his physician father’s consulting chamber, sketching portraits of the patients who gathered there each day. Later, he was much taken by expressionist art that flourished between the two World Wars. The works of George Grosz and Emil Nolde held a singular appeal for him. Shuvaprasanna’s friendship with the German writer and artist, Günter Grass, also proved to be a turning point in his life. “Grass encouraged me to speak out against injustice,” he says, “though I have always protested against oppression of any kind.” He mentions that he had participated in a protest march, along with a handful of other intellectuals, after 18 Ananda Margis were burnt to death in broad daylight in 1982 and also after a gruesome assault on three women in Bantala in 1990. “But nobody took much notice then,” he says, before adding, on a hopeful note, that the situation is changing now. “But the ambience is such that the good people are seldom able to express themselves fully and freely,” he rues. Although Shuvaprasanna acknowledges the influence of contemporary events on his work, his goal, he says, is to create art that transcends the limits of time and place. “The ultimate aim of great art, such as Picasso’s Guernica, is to reach a level of sublime abstraction,” he explains. “I am always haunted by a sense of sadness and dissatisfaction regarding my work in spite of the popularity of my paintings.”