Artist Sisir Sahana incorporates broken pieces of glass objects and other discarded material like roots, seeds, flowers, leaves and shells in his latest solo exhibition, A Dialogue with Soil. By Team Viva
Glass is like a quarrelsome wife,” quips sculptor and filmmaker Sisir Sahana, internationally known as the ‘glass artist’ for his uniquely designed artworks. In his latest solo exhibition, A Dialogue with Soil, Sahana is showcasing 12 new sculptures that were made in a residency programme at Pittsburgh Glass Centre, USA this year.
The show is about our roots and our connection with nature. Sahana has been working with a similar concept since a long time in both paintings and sculptures to discover the past through the present. His recent works are based on archival metaphors that are discovered through digging various layers. For creating these layers, he works with different textures of glass. He does not care for the traditional notion of making glass a sophisticated, polished and transparent material. By incorporating broken pieces of glass objects and other discarded material like roots, seeds, flowers, leaves, shells, animal remains and much more, Sahana likes to recreate the artworks. “I see them lying in the garbage, things that are of no use. Buried in this past is the story of our own being. These elements speak to me silently. Some ask, ‘do you believe we are blessed by god?’ Some ponder, ‘storm broke me off from my terrain’. Some got buried in natural disaster. This is the life cycle of soil that has breathed through thousands of seasons. For me, this is not just an excavation of a material world, it is my root, my being in nature,” he says.
For instance, in Untitled 3 and 5, a woman’s face gets merged with natural elements, almost as if it is frozen in time. He says, “I have chosen flowers that symbolises growth of old seeds buried in nature. I feel that growth is the most crucial part of our lives. I have tried to express an excavated look by using multiple different techniques.”
Untitled 5 is inspired by his under-water experience. “I saw so many things in the deep ocean merged with plants and corals. I have added greenish-blue to some of the works to recreate the aura. It brings the past into my present experience,” he says.
Sahana tells us about Untitled 6. He says, “The concept is similar to frozen time. Nature’s metaphors make us travel through various layers into the past from present.” Untitled 11 is all about a relationship between a man and a woman. “In the course of time, the sculptural forms of man and women have frozen along with nature’s elements. The inner sense of love cannot separate them.”
To create these evocative pieces of glass art, Sahana also uses waste glasses thrown away by other artists. “I integrate, reignite and recycle to recreate. Gradually, glass starts holding independent creative ideals.”
Coming from a remote village in Bankura district of West Bengal, the initial journey was not easy for Sahana. He recalls how it was practically impossible to convince his father, “but my urge to draw and paint since childhood drove me to find an art school in Bardhaman, a town 45 kilometres from our village. I had to walk six of those and then take a bus. I came to know about Kala Bhavan in Santiniketan from my art teacher, Samar Mukhopadhyay who finally supported me financially to study art at there,” says he.
After completing a BFA in painting from Kala Bhavan, Santiniketan, Sahana went on to pursue an Advanced Diploma course in stained glass at Central Saint Martins University of Art and Design, London. “One form of painting practised during that time was stained glass painting. While working with stained glass, I had learnt various heating techniques in kiln which could be used for creating artworks that had a unique appeal. This fascinated me and led me to experiment further with melting glass. I began to use colours in the same manner as I used to do in my flat surface paintings. That is how I gradually practiced sculptural forms of art besides painting on canvas or paper,” he says.
Sahana has also directed feature films like Prithvi in 2006, which depicts the life of an artist, Maati-O-Manush (The Soil and the People), being screened in prestigious film festivals and a documentary film on artist Suryaprakash, A Journey Through Life and Art in 2012.
Even though Sahana continues to paint, glass — a medium which is still uncommon in art fraternity in India — is closest to his heart.
(The exhibition is on till January 8 at Gallerie Ganesha.)