Elephants are purple, headless men sit placidly and flowers bloom in unusual places. These are just
some of the elements that run through the works of two brilliant artists –
Chaitali Morajkar from Goa and Dibyendu Seal from Kolkata in their latest show,
A Passionate Nature, curated by Samira Sheth and Kirti Parihar for the Project
Café in Assagao. The artists play with scale, colour and composition, creating
entirely new visual worlds that are of their own making – an escape from the
rigours and pressures, not to mention man-made disasters of the real world,
while making a strong statement on the same.
“I am fascinated by the artistic
imagination, and the possibilities it holds,” says independent art curator
Samira. “Here we have two artists who live in two separate geographical
regions. They both create their own surreal worlds exploring nature, art, love,
the feminine, technology and the intersection and intermingling of all their
particular artistic concerns. Where do their images come from and what do they
mean? The works of these two artists will absorb you with their unusual and
strange imagery – hinting at deeper meanings and fantastical worlds where
viewers are taken on a journey of discovery.”
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Highly accomplished and well regarded art
faculty, Chaitali Morajkar is celebrated for her surreal works exploring
femininity and nature. Her unconventional artistic imagination breaks away from
restrictions resulting in free-wheeling dream-like imagery, where the canvas
expands with possibility… much like new love… when lovers feel anything is
possible.
“Love has different states. Love for
friends, love for lover, love for children, love for God or love for your work…
a feeling of affection, protectiveness, warmth and respect; Love as a positive
feeling towards something or Love as passion where there is a feeling of
intense enthusiasm towards or compelling desire for someone or something,” says
Chaitali.
“The works talk about the passion in love.
There is no direct representation of a male or a female figure. I have used
motifs drawn from nature – flowers, insects, animals or visual forms like
designs and patterns juxtaposed with human figures in a symbolic manner. As a
visual artist I find passion in the forms around me, mainly in nature.
“I feel that even if an artist in love/passion paints a simple
object or landscape, their love/passion will naturally reflect in the work. My
works talk about the positivity of love through nature related imagery.”
Dibyendu
Seal is a software engineer by profession, and largely self- taught as an
artist. He loves to explore the contradictions of urban cosmopolitanism and the
increasing dependence on technology in our everyday lives. His paintings are
full of elements from the world of technology and gadgets interspersed with
organic life-forms from nature. The motifs in his images somehow manage to
evoke the aesthetic dimensions of ordinary objects, yet, at the same time try
to express a personal longing for sustenance by rediscovering his lost
connections with nature. He is influenced by design related concerns as well as
perennial philosophical issues regarding the nature of objects. With their
lyricism and limited colour palette Seal’s paintings narrate a gradual process
of self-discovery.
