The unending voyages of the dispossessed across cultural and political boundaries in human history serves as the backdrop for Sudipta Das’s artistic pursuit. The process enables the artist to redraw her own identity as a fourth generation Bangladeshi migrant in India. The ongoing exhibition “The Surface of the Memory” at Latitude 28, showcasing her works, can be described as an inspiration from memory and history.
“Basically my interest is how refugees struggle shifting from one place to another,” she explains pointing at her work for which she took reference from Noah’s ark, the painting of American folk artist Edward Hicks. It reappears made out of paper pulp projecting out from the surface, with people shifting from one place to another through the unending ripples of an ocean.
Talking about the material used in her art work Sudipta says, “I use paper layers, tea and coffee stains, natural pigments, water colours and while pasting paper I feel I am colleting various emotions.”
Another work of the artist titled “My Land” shows a red line reflecting river of blood in which she shows how human emotions are destroyed whenever partition or war takes place. Referring to it as an allusion and her process a medium of expressing emotions, Sudipta clarifies, “I am not a revolutionary person but it is my work which will speak up.”
Continuing the use of allusion Sudipta’s “The Great Shifting” portrays a boat full of refugees going along the waves to escape. The waves have reference to the Japanese painting “The Great Wave of Kanagawa” by Hokusai.
Each of Sudipta’s art work says something. While one shows a man in the boat going back to land in the search of his lost people but is left only with a bag of their lost memories. Likewise “Rail Gari” is figure oriented where dresses of children depict their respective religions. During their early years children are not affected by these divisions but when the age of innocence comes to an end, it changes everything. The panel painting method has been used in this work which denotes division into sections or panels.
Talking of the works displayed, the gallery’s founder-director Bhavna Kakar says, “Though Sudipta’s works sing the tune of a melancholic verse of people who have lost their roots, displaced and dispossessed –– they dream of a world beyond all boundaries as well, where the barriers of culture, religion and nationality will fall apart and a universal brotherhood will prevail.”
The Baroda-based Sudipta who graduated from Santiniketan, has recently exhibited her works at the Pair-2 Art Center in Taiwan.
On till August 30, 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.
