Animosity and universality

A solo art exhibition by Sabyasachi Ghosh titled ‘City animosity universality and other stories’ will showcase unrelated scenes from Indian urban landscapes that could easily be confused with scenes encountered when one strolls around the countryside.

In the observational depiction of the subjects in the paintings, the artist has tried to portray certain interesting aspects of human and animal behaviour that is very unlikely to be associated with cityscapes. Yet one encounters them every day without giving them much thought. The common sight of freely roaming bulls, buffaloes bathing, gatherings of pigeons, children besmeared with mud as they splash about in water pools in some neglected park etc are the subtle observations that have been captured by the artist on his canvas for this show.

Going with the title of the show ‘city animosity universality’ the artist sees large human gathering and settlements as archaic towards the idea of living in harmony with nature. Many of his canvases depict a mass doing things, like building something, raising something and hoping for something. This universal idea of trying to live as humans in a large society is the same everywhere. A city allows one an idea of life with ease but one runs around like a rat in a cage trying to live that idea.

Nowhere on any of the canvases has the artist painted buildings to showcase as cityscape, for him city stands to be the teeming mass of people that live like an archipelago, being very close to each other yet each individual being an island that vehemently protects its own space from others.

The paintings in this exhibition are done realistically on large canvases with acrylic colours. However there are some abstract paintings also showcased in order to break the monotony realism help creates on a gallery wall.

Sabyasachi Ghosh is a self taught artist and an avid biker, who rides to different and unknown destinations in India in order to satisfy his wonderlust. When he is not painting he is out riding. His artworks manage to capture some precious moments of joy, suffering, failure, success, fret and fever of everyday life. In this phase of his work there is very little that can be describe as accidental. 

His colours are confident and do not lead to obscurity of the theme of the paintings, even the abstract ones. Ghosh’s work is shaped around a series of intense contrast of cold and warmth, of darkness and light, of hardness  and softness, of stillness and noise, of solitude and crowd, of static and dynamic, of time arrested and timelessness and above all, love and passion.

He has done several solo shows in India and abroad. He has participated in many group shows and art workshops, domestic and international.