Miro on the streets of Kolkata

World's most renowned Catalan painter Joan Miro has once again come alive and this time it's on a six-yard canvas. Kolkata's advertising guru, graphic designer and creative powerhouse Raja Biswas has for the first time ever converted some of Miro's greatest works into wearable art – saris.

Biswas who has been an advertising honcho for the past 30 years calls his new collection "The Ladder of Escape". Biswas is nationally renowned for churning out some of the most incredible costumes in world famous Bengali director Rituporno Ghosh's films.

Biswas not only did his costumes but also did the publicity design in Ghosh's renowned films Unishe April, Ashukh and also worked very closely with AparnaSen in Juganto.

Miro finds space on saris desgned by Biswas. He always kept a figurative "ladder of escape" – one of his favourite images with him and he would scale it to flee from harsh conditions into the freedom of his imagination. "My saris intend to do just that – make women escape into a world where sunsets last half the night and fish swim backwards," says Biswas.

"Miro often said that my studio is a vegetable garden, where things follow their natural course. They grow, they ripen. You have to graft. You have to water. My philosophy is very similar. Most designers would work on their collection keeping seasons in my mind. My work is very much a natural course. An idea takes birth and the collection follows. It's not the other way round".

"Miro inspired me with his colours. Being from an art college background, my life was always about colours. Throughout my career as a top creative director in the world of advertising – spanning three decades, my world has always been inspired by colour – my signature style. Miro is drastically different from most of my previous collections. Miro's colours make me happy – his chrome yellows and blues and greens. His work reminds me of the picture perfect day as colours are always synonymous of happiness".

"I was stunned to see how saris came alive when I interpreted Miro on them – it was like a moving canvas. My styles are not available in the market anywhere," Biswas said.

Biswas takes inspiration from Miro's collection called Constellations. Started at the beginning of 1940 on the Normandy Coast and finished in mid-1941 in Spain, the series of small works on paper known as Constellations was, Miró believed, "one of the most important things I have done". In a Europe convulsed by war, and a Spain governed by dictatorship, the Constellations provided a lyrical escape. He said, "I dipped my brushes in solvent and wiped them on the white sheets of paper with no preconceived ideas – human figures, animals and stars emerged, filling the sheets with dazzling, extravagant pattern".

Biswas was also inspired by Miro's "Animated Landscapes" – in sharp contrast to his earlier, crowded depictions of the Catalan countryside, Miró emptied the compositions of his animated landscapes, leaving only fields of rich colour and a handful of forms.