Society of Contemporary Artists to hold its 59th exhibition at Birla Acedemy

Society of Contemporary Artists will be holding their annual art show, celebrating 59 years of their journey. The exhibition, to be held at Birla Academy of Art and Culture from December 11, will feature artists, young and old, showcasing their latest work. Among the artists there will be celebrated painters such as Ganesh Haloi, Manu Parekh, Sunil Kumar Das, Aditya Basak, Atin Basak, Sanat Kar and others.

Renowned painter Ganesh Haloi, known for his minimalistic approach, will display three of his latest works. All three are abstract, a departure from his signature landscape paintings. “It’s an extraordinary journey for Haloi to get out of his comfort zone of landscape art and experiment with the abstract. The paintings will be in monochrome shades of black, white and grey,” tells painter Atin Basak, a member of the Society, whose works will also be showcased alongside others.

Atin, known for his artistic impression of societal crises, has worked around the plight of the ubiquitous birds like crows and sparrows. “The crows and sparrows are on the verge of extinction thanks to radiation from cell phone towers. I have tried to show that in my four paintings,” says the artist. Atin has done his work in tempera on board and the paintings are bright as usual, which actually signifies optimism despite the dark nature of the subject. “There will also be two human portraits to signify their empathy with the birds,” adds the renowned painter.

Delhi based artist Manu Parekh, who spent a large part of his working life in Kolkata, is best known for his Benares Ghat series and a few of his paintings in acrylic on canvas will be displayed at the exhibition, too.

Veteran artist Aditya Basak, will be exhibiting a panel of three art works in acrylic and tempera on canvas, showing the fatal effect of war and nuclear bombs on humans since the first atom bomb was dropped in Japan. “War has ravaged us all and I have used Japanese bonsai to symbolise the atom bomb. The three paintings, 10 feet by three feet in size, have used red, black and yellow colours to bring out the violence.

Artist Rajen Mondal, whose work, too, depicts social crisis, will be displaying a huge 10 by 6 feet lino cut work on canvas this time. “The canvas depicts a tiger on a poisonous flower bed, implying that sometimes even the weak can hit back against the powerful and mighty in their own small way,” explains Pal, who specialises in wood cut print and etching.

The show has been curated by the 19 members of the Society and three to four works of each artist will be on display. The other artists include Bimal Kundu, Atanu Bhattachraya, Akhil Chandra Das, Dipak Banerjee, Manoj Dutta, Manoj Mitra, Niranjan Pradhan, Pankaj Panwar, Srikanta Paul, Rajen Mondal Lalu Prasad Shaw and others.