GALLERY ESPACE PRESENTS ‘EYE OF THE NEEDLE’ - A SOLO PAINTING EXHIBITION BY ARTIST TANMOY SAMANTA

Gallery Espace presents 'Eye of The Needle' ; a soloexhibition of more than twenty new works in paintings on canvas and paper by Delhi-based artist TanmoySamanta from October 09, 2009 to November 07, 2009 at Gallery Espace,Level 0-1, 16, Community Centre, New Friends Colony.   Hosted as asimultaneous event as part of the ongoing Delhi International Arts Festival(DIAF), the show highlights Samanta’s simple yet bold dialogue with forms,lines and colour which is aesthetically astounding and interesting to unravel.   Says Renu Modi, Director, GalleryEspace : “Tanmoy Samanta’s paintings remindus of the gifted, masterly and greatly underrated Gaganendranath Tagore. Likehim, Tanmoy too creates paintings that act as ideograms, reaching beyondsyllables and sounds to create a unique language of his own. Unlike others, hedoes not flit from one artistic style to another, but deepens his chosentrajectory.”   Brought up in an environment rich inliterary experience, Tanmoy Samanta, born in West Bengal in 1973, obtained aBFA and MFA in painting from the illustrious Kala Bhavan (College of Fine Artsand Crafts), Santiniketan in 1996. He grew up to savour the Tagorean ethos ofthe college and held on to the traditional materials for picture making, namelygouache, rice paper and pigments without any aesthetic conflicts. SaysTanmoy Samanta: “ I have always been mesmerized by shape and form thatignite my fantasy and imagination. My work layers multi-dimensional hues andtextures that I begin with and pare down to simple images of everyday life- notto get an end result but to depict continuous movement. In my laboratory, inthe process of achieving something, I make small discoveries along the waywhich are as significant as the intended result and end where success andfailure cease to be the opposite.”   For Tanmoy Samanta, his inspirationcomes from the memories of the coastal town where he grew up, memories like thedusk beckoning to a mysterious hinterland, the rising sea trying to devour thefull moon, sparkling movement of phosphorous coated fish lighting the pitchdark backwaters, tall shadowy trees swaying in a synchronizing mystery,lighthouses signaling alarm as well as reassurance, a thatched roof made ofcoconut-leaves catching fire and people shouting and rushing to fetch water, ahuge black snake coiled inside the rice reservoir to cool itself, one nightspotting an UFO and yet another night witnessing dacoits fleeing on their stilts,Soviet magazines being translated into Bengali, getting a globe as a birthdaygift,  remains of  a fighter plane on the sea shore from a nearbymilitary base, un-decipherable engravings on huge boats, week-long rains, anunfathomable fear of a possible catastrophe,  feeble sounds of someforeign channel in his wooden-cabinet suitcase-size radio working as a lullaby– all remain etched in the nook and corner of his mind.   The artist is fascinated by thecomplex relationship between inside and outside, interior and landscape, thethrob of content and the grip of the container. For instance in his workstitled ‘ War Mementos’ , the painting on first glance depicts various sizes of leather boots but  on a closer look, it revealsa ball, socket and system of levers that form the bones of the foot. In yetanother work titled ‘Butterfly’ , the painting represents aproposal for a flying city. In ‘The Beetle Car’ , the vehicleopens up like a loquacious body, its machine parts turning into limbs, asthough animated by a life force that takes away its destructiveness and makesof it an instrument of festivity. Other enigmatic works that will be on displayinclude Accessories, Germination II, Night & Day, Sewing Machine,Flying Machine, Treasure – Box, Lovers, The Key and Harbour amongothers .   In an era dominated by young artistswho eulogize the virtues of magnified scale, an indescribable simplicity iswhat pervades through Tanmoy Samanta’s works with some unexpected twists and twirls.He favours muted tonalities like the blood-pricked reds, dusty metal blues,leaf-shaded mulberry and shadowy jade. The images in his paintings seemmarooned in statelessness yet they are at play with their own contours, mundaneobjects discreetly telling different tales and known characters becomingobscure. Sometimes there are recurring images of inherited objects likemementoes and sometimes there are old items that may be outworn yet preserved.They become the commanding subjects that observe the mundane hustle and bustleof daily lives and chuckle and tease, seeming to know that regardless of timeand progress, what was then remains now. These exquisite disarrangements of theeveryday world and its architecture of objects, make each of his painting varybetween the pellucid and the clouded. Balancing adroitly between refinement andmenace, the artist puts his creative energy in creating frozen narratives thatallow multiple readings. He invites the viewer to come close, scrutinize theimages and contemplate the reverberations that the most innocuous of objectscan set off.   Recipient of Pollock-KrasnerFoundation Award (New York, 2003), TanmoySamanta has worked in the collegial setting of the Kanoria Arts Centre,Ahmedabad and has also taught at Rajghat, the Krishnamurti Foundation’s schoolin Varanasi.His solo shows have been exhibited earlier at Gallery Espace (New Delhi) and Anant Art Gallery(Kolkata).  He has also participated in several prominent group shows thatinclude ‘Telling it like it is’ at Cork Street Gallery (London); ‘KeepDrawing’, ‘Paper Flute’ and ‘Back to the Future’ at Gallery Espace(New Delhi); ‘Making History Our Own’ by SHAMAT; ‘Configuration’ at Anant Art Gallery (Kolkata); ‘Dialogue’ at Anant Art Gallery (NewDelhi); ‘ Contemporary Art Show’ at CIMA (Kolkata); ‘YoungSantiniketan Today’ at Guild Art Gallery (Mumbai). His works have also beenrepresented in both national and international art fairs like India Art Summit,India on Canvas, Art & Ecology camp, Green Peace and Art Dubai.   The artist celebrates fluidity andirresolution, instead of fixities and absolutes. He lives and works in New Delhi. ______________________________ ___

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