Kolkata-based self-taught artist Sabyasachi Ghosh deconstructs the making of India and human psyche in his forthcoming exhibition. He chats with Karan Bhardwaj
Clad in a white shirt and blue trousers, an unconscious man lays on the floor as another fellow, sitting on a couch placed next to him, plays a musical instrument. The divine sarod diffuses the tension as the protagonists relish over the musical eve. This scene is beautifully drawn on a canvas by Kolkata-based Sabyasachi Ghosh, who will be showing his solo exhibition at India Habitat Centre. Titled If Music Be The Food Of love, the exhibit reflects the impact of classic music on the artist himself. “It’s a real portrayal of a lazy afternoon at my friends' place when he played Sarod. It was a mesmerising moment for all of us,” says the artist.
In the exhibition A World Of My Own, Ghosh has put together his own interpretations of his surroundings and experiences in some forty artworks. “It’s like my own world; how I perceive the complexities of my surroundings. I try and simplify this understanding on my canvasses. The artworks explore multiple facets of human experiences like the taboos associated with sex, the idea of isolation through individualism et al,” says the artist.
Another artwork From The Mind Of An Imaginative History Teacher Who loves Bananas And Boti Kababs is an amalgamation of portraits of India’s prolific figures and some historic events. It’s the largest piece of 24X6 ft and took over two months. “It has about 200 figures and takes into account the story of the Indian subcontinent as taught in our manipulated history books,” informs the artist.
The abstract The Illusion Of Rendering A Perfectly Smooth Canvas gives you an optical illusion with a crumpled canvas on a 2D surface. “I want the viewer to realise that reality and surreality exist on the same plane of understanding,” says the artist.
Born in pre-liberalised era (late 70s), Ghosh grew up perceiving the dynamics of change that bridged his understanding of ‘then’ and ‘now’. “Art helps me understand the confusing world around us. My art is inspired by a simple understanding that if not for art what would have given colour to our drab existence!” he says.
Born in Kolkata, the artist has a studio in Agra. He has done several solo and group shows in India and abroad. The artist says he is not in awe of any particular medium and enjoys breaking the rules of art. “I am comfortable with all kinds of colours. While creating the artworks, if I feel a specific mode of colour will go well beside another different medium, I use it without bothering about the grammatical correctness of the painting. After all I am a self-taught who’s not bound by the orthodoxy,” he says.
In his exhibitions abroad, Ghosh has been appreciated for his abstract art. “Exhibitions outside India are strictly official affairs. The connoisseurs there do not ask too many questions and never bargain about the price. Their questions are related to the genre and contemporaneity of the idea depicted on the canvas. In all the exhibitions that I have done abroad abstract artworks are more preferred over realistic ones,” he says.
The artist disagrees with the oft-expressed perception that proponents of abstract art are incapable of creating immaculate life like images. “Such purblind ideas are a result of a half-baked knowledge of an artist's creative output,” he says. He believes that a great creator also is a master of deconstructing a given creation and vice versa. “In this never ending process of creation and destruction, the idea of abstraction gradually becomes reality and reality loses its grip on our psyche and veers towards nothingness, and perhaps art is the element that merges them and gives these two forces a meaning,” he says.