A proposal for a flying city!

03 November,2009 07:37 AM IST |   |  Swati Kumari

It's not everyday that you witness art which uses the most innocuous subjects to throw up revolutionary ideas


It's not everyday that you witness art which uses the most innocuous subjects to throw up revolutionary ideasu00a0

Muted tonalities like blood-pricked reds, dusty metal blues, leaf-shaded mulberry and shadowy jade aren'tu00a0 artists' colours anymore. Most of them swear by screaming scarlets and bold blues, thanks to the flamboyance the world has suddenly acquired. Some, however, stick to their style, no matter the simplicity and plainness.

Butterfly effect: Tanmoy Samanta's Butterfly represents a proposal for a flying city


Like Delhi-based artist Tanmoy Samanta. His show, called Eye of The Needle, highlights his subtle yet bold dialogue with forms, lines and colour, with each piece raising a radical idea. "I have always been drawn to mundane objects, and loved creating something extraordinary out of them. Fantasy is fun," says the 36-year-old, who obtained his BFA and MFA degrees from the illustrious Kala Bhavan (College of Fine Arts and Crafts), Santiniketan, in 1996.

The images in Samanta's paintings seem marooned in statelessness, yet they are at play with their own contours, discreetly telling different tales. Working with traditional materials for picture-making, like gouache, rice-paper and pigments, he explains, "I work with layers of multi-dimensional hues and textures, eliminating the extras in the end."


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 it an instrument of festivity


The most bizarre, perhaps, is his 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 are on display include Accessories, Germination II, Night & Day, Sewing Machine, Flying Machine, Treasure Box, Lovers, The Key and Harbour among others. It's sci-fi strokes at their best, before they inspire real life as does most revolutionary art.

Eye of The Needle
Where: Gallery Espace, Level 0-1, 16, Community Centre, New Friends Colony
When: On till Nov 7
Timings: 11 am to 7 pm
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Eye of the Needle Exhibitions Art Delhi Guide