Art is a Pleasure for Anindya Roy. He narrates his journey of art and how it is a balm for his sou
Since childhood drawing was a means of enjoying a good mood. It would help me pass quality time with myself. My grandmother’s stories from epics and various legendary artists’ paintings and sculptures also made me fall in love with art. That’s why, in the early days of my life, I enrolled in a local art school.
I gained experience with mixed media and charcoal medium, basically drawing cities and surrounding objects. During those time, being influenced by middle class life, dreams etc., I nurtured the idea of making compositions.
I developed a deep interest in art after graduation and set my goal to become an artist. I used to go to nearby villages and suburban areas for practicing sketching and studying nature. I felt nature is our all-time teacher. But when I joined the Sketches Club at the Academy of Fine Arts, Kolkata and simultaneously got associated with my favourite artist, Sri Shyamal Dutta Roy, my voyage of serious art started. As a self-taught independent artist, living away from the urban life, I acquired maturity and a unique style. I tried for an individual vision with the fantasy of images around the nostalgic, melancholic Calcutta – my city. Here, my emotions, braveness of mind and experience evoked my concept. In my art, nature is the main source of idea and environment, and figures and daily experience have always been parts of the composition. We know nature has a universal approach so the objects within my surrounding nurture my imagination. With emotion and spirit, my art is ultimately born out of the experience of imaginative wonderings of my creative mind. The composition with a claustrophobic cityscape or mindscape, where no other formal technique or ‘ism’ is involved, except my very own feelings and process of thinking.
It is important to mention here that my first participation in an exhibition was at Lalit Kala Academy’s national exhibition of 1992. This participation inspired me so much that I completely devoted myself to the visual art field. My mentor continued his guidance, and I feel honoured to be able to work with him in his studio till his death in 2005. Some other famous artists of our time also gave me guidance from their experience. Except mixed media and black & white, I have achieved skills in both water colour and acrylic on paper, board and canvas. My works in early days got selected for many national and regional exhibitions as well as prestigious collections. I also got the chance to teach art in some famous schools and express my thoughts in short stories that got published in magazines & books.
In my young days, I used to visit almost all exhibitions taking place in and around my city. This had a great impact on me. My eyes got trained to catch the inner feelings, and thus, I could understand the difference between academic skill and creative work and the purpose of my art study. I was influenced by rich traditional, miniatures of my country besides folk form but from the beginning, I have a habit of expressing my inner feelings, dreams, and what I experience in my daily life.
The natural way of artistic journey, the experiment of mindscape gradually transferred into my favourite acrylic and acrylic based mixed medium mostly on canvas in multiple sizes as basis of composition and subjects. My thinking process for paintings and a disciplined mind have helped me build a unique language and style. I have captured my total body of work by the title “conceptual scape” and have been continuing the series till today in my own studio. These paintings have received a high level of praise from critics and connoisseurs all over the world. Leading newspapers have also talked about these and they have got seasoned gallery support shows.
Regarding the concept, I would like to share some important points about my paintings. The idea actually originated from conceptualizing the environment of my time, the living and non-living objects of the surroundings, captured in a fraction of time with consciousness and necessary experience to visually culminate and illuminate.
As a travel and history lover, taking excerpts from monuments, historical structures, and nature and using them within my formation and creating a dramatic fantasy is an important feature of my work. There is no influence of surrealism or contemporary art of India. Space and horizontal structural forms are balanced like other colours and drawings, and some areas are subdued and some are highlighted. This creates a smooth part, comparing the elaboration, which I enjoy during painting.
This process happens like a basic rule of Physics. Painting is also a science. My composition links the ancient period with the modern period. Figures are also part of it because we are living in a densely populated society. Sometimes they are symbolic, for instance, the struggling animal’s figure, sometimes spiritual, it all depends on the circumstance. I enjoy my efforts at every step. In the same way, I enjoy my practice of literature.
Whatever maybe my process, if it soothes the soul and comforts the eyes of the viewers that should be a success of my creativity.
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