Sumana Mukherjee tells stories of life and people through her travel pictures. By Rupinder Kaur
A stack of rope lays on a beach and the picture (printed on canvas) is titled Don’t tie me up. A little ironic, is what we tell the filmmaker and, now an artist, Sumana Mukherjee explains, “it is every individual’s fear to be tied down to something or someone. If your soul is free, then why be tied down.”
Out of the 5,000 pictures clicked by her over the years for her travel diaries, she recently displayed 50 of them titled lense Paint at Taj Vivanta, Ambassador, using the canvas as medium. One gets a glimpse of the Shankarpur beach in Bengal, dense forests and settlements of Chattisgarh, louvre and Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel in Paris, et al.
“My friends asked me to showcase the collection and since I am a filmmaker, I was a bit hesitant. For me, Raghu Rai is the master. Then this concept of digital and lense paint came into my mind. Choosing pictures took me about four months,” shared Mukherjee, who has directed one feature film independently called Dreamz: The Movie (her directorial debut), and has produced five films.
As the sun sets at a beach somewhere in Odisha, a father points out at the horizon while a kid, clutching his hand, looks on. A mesmerising click where the shades transit from greyish blue to hues of sunswept fire.
“It’s about our future generation and what we give them. What we share with them is what they’ll take forward. It’s about how we convey our experiences with them rather than imposing our thoughts,” she smiled.
Camera shots on canvas is what the artist was keen on experimenting with. “The shots came out so well that it was easy to get it done on the canvas. I also wanted to give my work a painting effect, but at the same time, I don’t want it to look entirely like a painting. These are frozen moments with hints of liveliness,” she said.
Another shot of changing shades with footsteps imprinted on sand called Changing Steps had been displayed on three canvases. Mukherjee captured the moments in Shankarpur when the sun was setting. She informed, “It talks about life and how very individual undertakes a journey and leaves behind their mark. You see a trail of footsteps moving in a forward direction and then somewhere in the middle it seems like the individual turned back. He or she does so to see what they’ve left behind for the others.”
Filmmaking takes Mukherjee to various locations throughout the country where she also comes across interesting subjects and stories. As we stood in front of another showpiece For You, where one can see two women walking away with bundles of what seemed like dry leaves, she recalled, “This was an interesting incident. I was clicking a woman when a man came to me and objected so I told him that I love clicking and will share the pictures with him as well. We were chatting and all of a sudden he hopped on his bicycle and started rushing towards these two women. Then I found out, the two had stolen the bundles from his bicycle and left. I told the man to stop chasing them and take the money from me while I clicked them.”