Chalar Pathe by artist Sujata
Chakraborty was a visual delight
Sujata Chakraborty
with Nobel laureate Amartya Sen
Titled Chalar Pathe ("On the
Way"), the eleventh solo exhibition of paintings by artist Sujata
Chakraborty, was a visual delight to behold. Her paintings transformed
the lounge at Taj Bengal (the venue) to an arena where bold colours and
confident mastery of the art-form coalesced incandescently.
The artist’s frames had captured vignettes of daily life; every day
activities and stances that fired Sujata’s imagination. Be it a woman
lovingly feeding her pet or two lovers caught dallying under a tree,
whether it’s an aged lady sitting in pensive meditation or a
fish-seller brandishing her fare in a vibrant market, the visuals
enthrall and arrest.
The woman’s figure is fore grounded in the majority of the paintings;
real women whose ethnic beauty is both contained and revealed in
colourful sarees. Though a couple of paintings are sombre in their
muted palette choice, the feminine form dominates there too.
Commenting on this, Sujata explains, “The female form’s beauty and
rhythmic proportions are unmatched. Also, though I have been
consciously trying to paint in neutral shades, colours just spill onto
my canvas on their own accord!” She also categorically refrains from
painting the ills of human life, preferring instead to exult in the
universal good.
The inexorable life force of the artist’s vision and soul manifests in
her work and finds its takers too. The likes of Nobel laureate Amartya
Sen and actor Soumitra Chatterjee have lauded Sujata’s present
endeavour. Myriad facets of everyday life metamorphose into the eternal
under Sujata’s brushstrokes. Regurgitating life’s imprints has Sujata
wielding her weapon with finesse and passion. When watching her paint
live, one is reminded of Pablo Picasso’s words “Art is a lie that makes
us realise the truth.”
