The show, City Animosity Universality and other Stories by Sabya Sachi Ghosh represents day to day activities in city life. He tells Ila Sankrityayan about the cacophony that is created in the society by urbanism and how his works get inspired from it
Roaming bulls, buffalos bathing, gathering of pigeons, children besmeared with mud as they splash in pools in neglected parks, any image from a daily life makes theme for Sabya Sachi Ghosh’s work. The rebirth of the images on canvas make the upcoming show by the artist titled 'city animosity universality and other stories'. The artist, through the drawings, has tried to portray certain interesting aspects of human and animal behavior that are unlikely to be associated with cityscapes; which urban people fail to notice. The artist, in a subtle way, has depicted the human nature and the way he survives in society. He has created human gatherings and settlements on canvas that is part of urban landscapes or in simple words city life.
But Ghosh himself is not a city person. “I am not a city person even though I live in an urban sprawl but deep down I long for the quiet and the solitude an open field of crops offer me. The environment of a city has conditioned me to believe that when too many people congregate in one place they inevitably step on each others' toes metaphorically speaking. The hustle bustle of people’s movement is a cacophonous affair. This disharmony as I would like to call it is a universal phenomenon and I find this way of life anachronistic towards the progress of civilisation and the irony is that man has made civilisation and development synonymous with urbanism. The title of my show explains how Indian urbanism would mean to an observing person”, he says.
The painting titled ‘smile from a veil’ is a work on the play of light on black and yellow. The veiled woman and her pet dogs are enjoying each other's company against a yellow back ground. The dogs do not see her smiling face nor do we. Yet we can hear a lot of laughter emitting from that surface. This is a metaphorical allusion to harmony which depends on the seeker, whom one may or may not find it in a city. In another work a group of pigeons typically represent urnabism; watching them reminds of our daily life. His artworks manage to capture moments of joy, suffering, failure, success, fret and fever of day to day life.
“I am expressing my observation of city life in my own way without drawing any buildings. I started working on this theme a year ago and have done a series of 31 large canvases during the time. These works have been developed to show intense contrast of darkness and light, of stillness and noise, of solitude and crowd, and above all, love and passion”, says Ghosh.
The paintings in this exhibition are done on large canvases with acrylic colours. There are some abstract paintings also showcased in order to break the monotony on a gallery wall. "All my works are what I observe and interpretation of the things I see around. I wont be able to create anything out of nothingness”, he concludes.
The show will begin on September 1 at Visual Arts Gallery, India Habitat Centre.
