Translating Realism Sanjay Bhattacharyya received my intrusion with characteristic calm and just the right degree of casual, well-bred simplicity, with no trace of inattentiveness. He was there, all there to elucidate. It was the attitude of a man who is seeking with sincerity and who is committed to that search: to whom art or creativity and creation is a process, a way of life. Impressions are all one has to go by, intuitive ones, and I distinctly sensed a being who is able to live humbly with himself, both as an artist and as a man.
Sanjay Bhattacharyya has his own brand of realist representation, flashback of his roots in the Calcutta pastorale. Subtly mercurial and humbly energised, his paintings are a rendition of his favourite subjects - the lone human figure or objects trapped in attitudes that oscillate between despair and ennui.
...It is something in keeping with the times, and yet it reminds us of images that reveal themselves in our past without being derivative of them.
As his perceptions of life around him become sharper, images are cast from the conventional model and rustic mould - working through fundamentals that make new expressions a possibility.
Sanjay's figures always seem to evoke familar feelings: they preen, philosophise, peer and even philander. If the adults have a rugged and lonely quality, mirroring life as a realist, Sanjay's strokes enhance life rather than analyze it.
Sanjay's compositions are never awkward. In structure and allegorical content, the fact that he paints instintively and intuitively makes his work both intense and nostalgic. Perhaps his lone figures are best understood in the context of his own life as we trace his inner journey through the imagery of modern livelihood and human condition.
Seeing him work on a painting, be it a water colour or on oil is a mesmeric experience. The unfolding, growth and finale have the inevitibilty of an emotive happening; its finishing trembling on the blade of a knife.
...Sanjay reveals a technical mastery that can vivify the most remote and unfamiliar realms - the warm ochre, grey and autumn tones bespeak subtle tonalities in a palpable atmosphere.
...Although his approach to landscape is freer, more inventive and grounded in observation, Sanjay arranges the features of landscapes he sees into endlessly varied compositions. Most important, Sanjay deliberately emphasises the picturesque elements in a landscape as he heightens on tones passively the most ordinary scene by subtle colouring and strong compositorial accents.
...Sanjay took me back to the works of Ruisdael: the Jewish cemetery and monumental ruins which combined the real and the imaginary. By creating a distinctive mood - the dark backgrounds, subdued tonality and the dense depths, Sanjay's works have a solemn brooding air. It would be apt to quote Goethe when he said "A pure feeling, clear thinking artist who delights, teaches, refreshes, animates ..."
When we leave the room after viewing Sanjay's works, we don't feel like looking into the streets. Neither do we dare to look deeper into ourselves. We walk silently through the evening darkness, contemplating on the beauty an ethos of this inspired painter.
- Uma Nair
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