Sanjay Chattacharya

Deep, Personal Perception

Sanjay Bhattacharya's oils currently at view at Birla Academy are the images of solid three-dimensional world evoked with a high degree of verisimilitude. Their stylistic link with the past western realistic art is obvious. One may recall soapily though, the Dutch realists, the French 18th century painters and some 20th century artists here and abroad making figurative images using idiom of traditional realism with unmistakable personal accents.

But all the 32 oils in large and very large formats overwhelmingly impress the viewer even if for their sheer virtuosi finesse. A Delhi based young painter, Sanjay is known for his exceptional handling of watercolour in works he exhibited in Calcutta last year. The current series displays his equal command over the oil medium.

...There are interior scenes, recalling frames in a Satyajit Ray film - dark bedrooms, with old style table, dressing table, chairs part of a four poster, or bedstead with massive ornately carved head-board set against bright sunlight coming in through open windows.

...The staircase scenes, the city scapes with large chunks of the sky, often look more invented than real, composed in the studio to the strict system of construction and despite their solidity and firmness, objects and forms are marked by a deep personal perception of the artist of an abstract quality in their spatial existence, in their refines chiaroscuro-definition and in their formal inter-relationship.

- Manasu Majumder

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