| Born in 1975
The artist describes his work as a “thin world created out of various shapes of varied colours and textures.” Sumitro Basak creates an ambiguous world – they are either true ‘false’ realities or false ‘true’ realities. His forms are constructed, collaged out of materials which are in their actual use, meant for celebratory purpose. However, the world the artist creates out of them are not about celebration – it is filled with shadows. The fragments of paper suggesting a relationship to a fragment of a memory. Basak’s ‘people’ are amorphous forms, they change, and shift and activate spaces randomly. Much like children’s art which is, one suspects, the language Basak is inspired by. But his training in formal art, ladens his work with rationality and multiple layers of interpretation although apparently simple in expression. There is a tension between what is seen and unseen, a sense of a lurking presence. In many ways these unfilled areas complete or add to the spatial complexity; he creates this with minimal forms by making the empty spaces a part of the ‘picture’. |
