HYDERABAD: Listen up! These artworks speak. They whisper of time. Whether it’s swaying roots, a withered bouquet of flowers, or strokes of dried grass, they are all an ode to life’s transient beauty — that which cradles within its wilted embrace the essence of time’s inexorable march into abyss.
Titled: Departed Dreams, being showcased at the State Gallery of Art, Madhapur, each work of art speaks of multitude, blending effortlessly on handmade paper, textured and tactile, with artist Tusar Kanti Pradhan’s intricacy. He handpicked wheat husk from the bosom of nature and pressed his own paper.
Found and churned to speck, earthy pigments he used and aligned every hair of the brush for collection to be possible. “I handpicked raw materials and created all the supplies before getting to the actual work. It was a lot of work,” says he, who has sworn not to use synthetic art supplies.
The artist’s touch, both tender and deliberate, leaves an indelible imprint upon the paper. Surely, a celebration of the natural world would have been incomplete without the opaque geometric precision of electronic lines and the brilliant, modern frames dance defiantly, of today.
“All my works are based on the concept of life, environmental consciousness, and sustainability. It helped me with a Fellowship in Spain for an exchange programme — Animation da escola Antonio Pailde,” he, who completed his Bachelor’s and Masters in Painting from the Government College of Art and Craft, Kolkata, said.
“The recent years have been a constant battle against anxiety, a battle that has left me treading water in a disharmonious sea. I was for days, sterile, on an unforgiving bed, with nothing but the desperate stench of saline filling my nostrils and the harsh glare of life hitting me,” he said, adding that his explorations within this series of artworks are born from a philosophy that has arisen out of navigating turbulent waves while hopelessly searching for flickers of light in the darkness.
“It was moments of despair, through which his artistic vision has been rekindled, fuelling a relentless pursuit of hope in the face of life’s ceaseless toil. Over time, his canvases have become stained with the scarlet hues (in later works), of his laborious journey, each stroke an articulation of his ever-changing mind,” said G Vignesh, curator of the show and art historian. He added, “The works is a passionate attempt to coalesce the myriad shades of pain into a metaphysical language that speaks to the soul.”
WHAT: Tusar Kanti Pradhan’s art exhibition: Departed Dreams
WHEN: Until April 23
WHERE: State Gallery of Art, Madhapur