Recording the Undulations of Nature

What is the work you have done this time for your fourth solo? I ask Anukul at his apartment in Mohammadpur where he keeps his works and sometimes shows to art lovers.  Anukul replies: “Acrylic plus charcoal – what I call mixed media.” His subjects for 15 years have been Nature : gloomy weather, dust,  population, rain, a rising city, when the village moves to the city for economic reasons. “In the last five years his nostalgic ties with his village – with the boat giving way to electricity driven  river launches. One finds modern technology alongside environmental chaos. The subjects are a combination of the reflection of life, which is figurative and semi-figurative, says the painter. Thus his artistic sensibility has gradually developed. In the first creation, there is deep blue and gray with jet-black lines between. The  second painting is full of earthy colours mixed with gray, white, swirls—both evocative and imaginative. Ruby red is also seen with other contrasting colours, which strike the mind.

One work is meant to be the expression of a portrait with minimal lines—you feel an ancestor's spirit stare at you. There is the shadow of a Baul who sings and dances in one's memories. This is the overwhelming painting in vermilion—it contains both the singer and his helper, with the 'Banglar dhol' and the castanet—like instrument which is clapped together.

The blue painting with bits of white peeping through shows the sky on an average day. The complicated restless day is reflected in the orange and white creation with the electrical impulses darting in between like lightening. The artist calls it 'Action Painting’ —somewhat like the works of Jackson Pollock which tries to capture the sound pollution and dirt of a city at the end of the day. Chrome yellow is the tone used, and instead of the brush strokes or application of pieces of leather with paints, the hands and their five fingers are used straight away.

The last solo of the painter was in 2010. A lot of change is seen since then. Being a full-time painter, he experiments at will. There is nothing that is clear and photographic. The blues and reds present figures from the part for a child. The earthy creation, massive in size, brings the image of a woman with opulent breasts and long limbs. Thus we get a modern version of the mother and child—the infant craving for more attention than ever. There is a time, the artist says, when a person is just like a shadow from the past. “Matter cannot be destroyed so the memories form the past of the dear ones will always be there—moving in your mind , memory and imagination,” says the artist, vehemently defending his departure to semi abstraction. This development and change is to avoid boredom. The figures are done in ash gray.

In three years he hopes to exhibit 40 pieces. Anukul, like his mentor and icon, Van Gogh expresses moods and ideas which haunt and overwhelm him. No doubt he knows that just as pleasing the dictates of the galleries is vital, so also to have a living for himself and his small family is necessary. To earn money for the paints and brushes go hand in hand in expressing his dreams and desires. He has overcome financial and family crises to an extent. He feels that unless he paints and draws each day, he does not live. His whole existence revolves around his drawing and painting. For 20 years he has been painting with one goal: to excel and capture the minds of men.