New Delhi, Oct 14 : An artist's drive to seek out the untapped profundity behind the surface of the banal transforms mental pictures into spectacular works of art. Sanjay Bhattacharya's ongoing show here vividly reflects this ardour of an artist's mind.
"Na Mono Lagena", named after Salil Chaudhary's famous song brings out an array of 16 large photographs and a series of composite studies in small format that celebrate his travels all over India.
One can hear the song's essence echo when he says: "I am never satisfied."
"I am not a great photographer," the famed artist known for his watercolours and oils said.
"I pick up the camera when I am tired of the world and I go in search of peace."
Indeed, the artist's mind is not the one that settles in one place but keeps on exploring to find the next source of inspiration.
The inspiration is not a specific destination or subject, necessarily. It is the stir of emotions processed by the travels which would find expression through his art.
He is quite known for his quirkiness in experimenting with technique which he carries out with the sheer brilliance of a genius artist.
In 1999, he had paid an entire tribute to the films of Satyajit Ray.
Filmmaker Pritish Nandy would refuse to believe that these paintings were done by him because he had changed his technique here for this series, Bhattacharya fondly recounts.
He is quite known for his quirkiness in experimenting with technique. His works are a visual repertoire of various themes flitting across travel soirees to urban tales.
His photographs eclectically capture the sweeping landscapes buzzing with scenic grace.
"From mighty mountains covered in snow to an evening sky reflecting its poetic melancholy on the river enveloped in an enthralling chiaroscuro; highlighting the mundane of utensils in such artistic nuance as if the Indian post-modernist lens was never better-articulated, a tiny Krishna statue captured in a meticulous foreplay of light and shadow," art critic Uma Nair elaborated.
"How soulfully the fragments of life and exploration have been framed through poetic gaze!"
"Bhattacharya brings the same eye for detail, the observation of depths and quirks in life's moments. You can see the magic of finer expression in these images that sweep across rural India to small pockets of the city of Delhi and other places," she added.
The exhibition will be on for view at Visual Arts Gallery till October 15.
