Painting Acrylic on Canvas 36″ x 48″
Brief Description:
The rapid growth of Bolpur and its neighboring areas has endangered wildlife due to habitat loss, increased environmental stressors, and disruption of natural ecosystems due to rapid urbanization. The painting has an embedded map of Bolpur with the Ajay River depicting the flooding of the river. I explored my grandparents’ experiences as riverbank dwellers and their relationship with the river eventually forced them to migrate. I create my own Mappa Mundi while exploring human attachment to natural landscapes, man-made built forms, vernacular architecture, and the effects of changing environments on human identities and psyche.
Details:
The rapid growth of Bolpur and its neighboring areas has endangered wildlife due to habitat loss, increased environmental stressors, and disruption of natural ecosystems. The painting has an embedded map of Bolpur with the Ajay River depicting the flooding of the river. I explore my grandparents’ experiences as riverbank dwellers and their relationship with the river. I create my own Mappa Mundi while exploring human attachment to natural landscapes, man-made built forms, vernacular architecture, and the effects of changing environments on human identities and psyche. I contemplate how Bolpur has changed beyond recognition due to rapid urbanization in the last forty years. Similarly, the painting “My Mappa Mundi Mapanare, Venezuela” maps memories of my fourteen years in Matanzas, Venezuela, a country that’s completely changed.
I am in the process of working on a series mapping memory, identity, my family’s migration, culture, and history, through mythology using folk art imagery depicting flora, fauna, landscapes, and architecture of the places I have lived. In my work mapping memories of Bolpur, I also reminisce about my childhood visits to my grandparents’ house.
I make innumerable drawings/sketches reflecting my thoughts and write my academic research in sketchbooks for months at a time. My process of assembling these drawings, research writings, maps, fabrics, and photographs geometrically to create larger works is much like the process of creating architectural conceptual designs. These paintings are mostly mixed media or acrylic. For sketches, I use India ink and watercolor on paper. I use pencil and Rotring Isograph pen on tracing paper for maps and plans respectively. I use flowing lines and brushwork to unify the embedded maps, textiles, and photographs. Many of my paintings have maps or traditional Bengali fabric used in Home Prayer Altars. I combine the East with the West and use ancient philosophy and iconography to modern narratives. I aspire to merge conscious storytelling and symbolism with geometric abstraction in my paintings.
My paintings tell stories that are both personal and universal. I take inspiration from mythology, philosophy, narrative storytelling techniques in ancient folk art of Bengal “Pattachitra”, and Western Geometric Abstraction creating my hybrid style reflecting my own hybrid identity. I explore the effects of climate change in the places I have lived, the environmental and sociological impacts of rapid urban development, diaspora, and eco-migration. In my work, I address themes of gender biases, identity, womanhood, and the societal expectations placed on women.
Tiger- Widows painting offers a glimpse of a unique relationship between environment, culture, gender issues, and eco-migration.