Through a three-day solo art exhibition that concluded at Ganjam Kala Parishad auditorium of Berhampur in Odisha on Thursday, artist Stitadhi Rath tried to create awareness about traditonal folk art, dance, music and culture of Ganjam.
It was the first solo art exhibition of this New Delhi-based artist in his home district who hails from Buguda area of Ganjam district. According to him it was homage to the Ganjam region that is birth place of maximum number of folk dance and theatre forms in Odisha. “But in this era of electronic entertainment folk forms are losing their sheen and the folk artistes are finding it hard to make their skills survive for the next generation,” said Mr Rath.
Since past several years Mr Rath is using surrealistic style to come up with paintings depicting folk art and culture of Ganjam.
Sixteen of these paintings and two documentaries on the same theme were displayed in world conference of artists in Russia in 2014. Some these paintings had been displayed in the art exhibition at Berhampur.
Three major paintings of this exhibition were surrealistic depiction of Nabakalebara rituals of Sri Jagannath temple. Folk dance form like Bharat Leela , mural paintings of wooden sun temple of Biranchi Narayan, literary creations of great poet Kavisurya Upendra Bhanja became themes of his paintings to take the viewers to realm of contradictory thoughts of dream and reality.
A painting was about the traditional belief of people Ganjam which has been a major catalyst for protection of black bucks. In some paintings, Mr Rath was also critical of negative aspects like use of slangs as well as liquor addiction in this region.
