‘Sangam’. Aptly named, the art exhibition was truly a confluence of ideas, colours, paintings and pictures. Curated by noted artist Manas Jena, the national-level exhibition had works of over 40 artists mounted at the Lalit Kala Akademi here. Those featured, though differing in style, technique, and temper, found a common opening to share their rich, creative repertoire in a resonating visual language.The event showcased several promising artists like Kshetrabasi Mohanta who specialises on painting of tribal life and intelligently uses scripts of the Santhali tribal language as his motifs in each of the works. Some of the works were figurative creations, depicting tales from mythology. Artist Kailash Nayak presented a painting on Buddha’s different meditative postures, while Santosh Routray concentrated more on representing the images of Hindu gods and goddesses with traditional and intricate designs.Although studying to be an engineer, participant Chinmaya Panda who shares a passion for art was also here with his painting. He used bright, fiery colours to paint a slum dweller in a shanty. Gouri Prasad Rout’s creation used symbols of horses in an urban background to demonstrate the fast-paced life that has come with urbanisation.Manas Jena’s work was an analysis of human nature and psychology. As usual, DN Rao, Baladeb Moharatha, Siba Panigrahi, Lalatendu Rath, and Meenaketan Patnaik - all familiar names for the artists’ fraternity and art connoisseurs of Odisha - were included in the exhibition.Favouring vibrant hues, Ravindra Salve’s canvas incorporated bold use of colour suggesting a virtual flight of fantasy. Figurative and religious theme gave shape to his idea. The artist based in Mumbai, used larger than life images in sense of proportion as well as colour. Working with acrylics, Salve used figures and shapes to dominate the canvas. It is the assemblage of these shapes and the vivid hues characteristic of his paintings that dramatised the theme. Likewise, Lucknow-based and Varanasi trained Awadhesh Misra painted in abstract. His composition ‘Experiment on Canvas’ was grounded in geometric patterns with playful juxtapositions of circles and squares and other geometric shapes evoking romantic notions of limpid imagery and evocative human metaphors. Awadhesh’s use of colour was sensitive. It progressed gradually - from darker to lighter or vice-versa.The visitors also got to see work of established Indian enamel artist from Kolkata, Susmita Banerjee. Having adopted enamelling as her medium, Susmita uses a limited number of colours such as black, red, ochre and green and they brightened up her composition on a steel plate that would otherwise look rather dull and hackneyed. The artist from Bhopal Ranjit Arora interprets the “tribal origin of existence” and reflects the magical elements of primitive art.Rarely does a group exhibition include the works of artists with such divergent styles. The paintings in Sangam were impressive when taken as a single unit, while coming together as a satisfying visual spectacle as a whole. It ended on Tuesday.
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