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From: Neha Chandra Category: Exhibitions Date: 13 October 2009 Time: 02:44 AM Review: New Delhi: Gallery Espace presents 'Eye of The Needle'; a solo exhibition of more than twenty new works in paintings on canvas and paper by Delhi-based artist Tanmoy Samanta from October 09, 2009 to November 07, 2009 at Gallery Espace, Level 0-1, 16, Community Centre, New Friends Colony. Hosted as a simultaneous 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, Gallery Espace: “Tanmoy Samanta’s paintings remind us of the gifted, masterly and greatly underrated Gaganendranath Tagore. Like him, Tanmoy too creates paintings that act as ideograms, reaching beyond syllables and sounds to create a unique language of his own. Unlike others, he does not flit from one artistic style to another, but deepens his chosen trajectory.” Brought up in an environment rich in literary experience, Tanmoy Samanta, born in West Bengal in 1973, obtained a BFA and MFA in painting from the illustrious Kala Bhavan (College of Fine Arts and Crafts), Santiniketan in 1996. He grew up to savour the Tagorean ethos of the college and held on to the traditional materials for picture making, namely gouache, rice paper and pigments without any aesthetic conflicts. Says Tanmoy Samanta: “I have always been mesmerized by shape and form that ignite my fantasy and imagination. My work layers multi-dimensional hues and textures that I begin with and pare down to simple images of everyday life- not to get an end result but to depict continuous movement. In my laboratory, in the process of achieving something, I make small discoveries along the way which are as significant as the intended result and end where success and failure cease to be the opposite.” For Tanmoy Samanta, his inspiration comes from the memories of the coastal town where he grew up, memories like the dusk beckoning to a mysterious hinterland, the rising sea trying to devour the full moon, sparkling movement of phosphorous coated fish lighting the pitch dark backwaters, tall shadowy trees swaying in a synchronizing mystery, lighthouses signaling alarm as well as reassurance, a thatched roof made of coconut-leaves catching fire and people shouting and rushing to fetch water, a huge black snake coiled inside the rice reservoir to cool itself, one night spotting an UFO and yet another night witnessing dacoits fleeing on their stilts, Soviet magazines being translated into Bengali, getting a globe as a birthday gift, remains of a fighter plane on the sea shore from a nearby military base, un-decipherable engravings on huge boats, week-long rains, an unfathomable fear of a possible catastrophe, feeble sounds of some foreign 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 the complex relationship between inside and outside, interior and landscape, the throb of content and the grip of the container. For instance in his works titled ‘War Mementos’, the painting on first glance depicts various sizes of leather boots but on a closer look, it reveals a ball, socket and system of levers that form the bones of the foot. In yet another work titled ‘Butterfly’, the painting represents a proposal for a flying city. In ‘The Beetle Car’, the vehicle opens up like a loquacious body, its machine parts turning into limbs, as though animated by a life force that takes away its destructiveness and makes of it an instrument of festivity. Other enigmatic works that will be on display include Accessories, Germination II, Night & Day, Sewing Machine, Flying Machine, Treasure – Box, Lovers, The Key and Harbour among others. In an era dominated by young artists who eulogize the virtues of magnified scale, an indescribable simplicity is what 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 seem marooned in statelessness yet they are at play with their own contours, mundane objects discreetly telling different tales and known characters becoming obscure. Sometimes there are recurring images of inherited objects like mementoes and sometimes there are old items that may be outworn yet preserved. They become the commanding subjects that observe the mundane hustle and bustle of daily lives and chuckle and tease, seeming to know that regardless of time and progress, what was then remains now. These exquisite disarrangements of the everyday world and its architecture of objects, make each of his painting vary between the pellucid and the clouded. Balancing adroitly between refinement and menace, the artist puts his creative energy in creating frozen narratives that allow multiple readings. He invites the viewer to come close, scrutinize the images and contemplate the reverberations that the most innocuous of objects can set off. Recipient of Pollock-Krasner Foundation Award (New York, 2003), Tanmoy Samanta has worked in the collegial setting of the Kanoria Arts Centre, Ahmedabad and has also taught at Rajghat, the Krishnamurti Foundation’s school in 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 that include ‘Telling it like it is’ at Cork Street Gallery (London); ‘Keep Drawing’, ‘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 (New Delhi); ‘Contemporary Art Show’ at CIMA (Kolkata); ‘Young Santiniketan Today’ at Guild Art Gallery (Mumbai). His works have also been represented 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 and irresolution, instead of fixities and absolutes. He lives and works in New Delhi.