Arambha, translated into Odia — beginning, was the apt title for the just concluded week-long solo exhibition of paintings at the Orissa Modern Art Gallery in Bhubaneswar by the city-based budding artist Sanjeeb Nanda. The first show of his career, it was not a mere beginning but a distinct debut.
A student of the Utkal University of Culture in Bhubaneswar, he is presently pursuing his masters in visual art. Though a student of graphic art, Sanjeeb's 12 paintings — all in acrylic on canvas — showed his immense talent as a painter of figurative art and portrait painter as well. And his background in graphic art has supplemented his craft of painting on the canvas. As a result, he was able to create an amazing texture on the canvas with the brush strokes.
Both in concept and creativity, Sanjeeb excelled as a debutante exhibitor. Aptly as the title suggested, it was his first ever show - the beginning of his career as a painter. And in another way, it was also the beginning of his creative journey. Apparently autobiographical in undertone, the paintings — all having the face of a young man in the frame — also portrayed the hopes, aspirations and dreams of a young man as well as his fear, despair and disillusionment. The shades on most of the faces also suggested the youth's confusion at times.
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While one of his frames shows an aeroplane, another feature a rocket — both indicates how the young minds love to dream high and fly. In another, the boy in the frame sees a number of blades at the backdrop reminding him how he has to walk on the razor's edge of life. Similarly, in one of the works, the face is tensed while gazing at the newspaper — a result of too many options lay before a young boy to choose his career and too many things that he is being told about the life and the society.
Sanjeeb's appeal lied in his honest expressions of his innermost feelings and convictions through his art. There was no pretension. Both in his craft and content, the painter proved his potential as a promising painter.