In pursuit of …!

The CMF Palette of Life

‘Where is home?’, when asked for the podcast interview at International Students House, the first place that came to my mind is my ancestral home in West Bengal. The colour palette of clear blue sky, the lush green garden at the entrance, and earthy brown soil, both on the banks of river Teesta, and in the central courtyard of the house, has subconsciously stayed with me. When I started to map my life story through colour, material, and finish palette, it is then I realized that how the influence has impacted my interests and eventually my choices in art practice.

The first image on the extreme left corner is from my ancestral home and the second to it is of London. The dominant colours blue, green, and brown in the images, can also easily be traced in my artworks (the rest five pictures that I have shared in the slide). Constant learning with the endless opportunities of exploring beyond my limits is for me the sky and colour blue symbolizes the same. The opportunity for continuous growth with an optimistic approach is what colour green and nature means to me. While green for me symbolizes life and originality, brown gives me a sense of being simple and real. Even if the soil looks ugly and coarse, stony and ordinary, it provides nourishment to the whole ecosystem. Thus, for me, the roughness of soil and it’s earthy brown tones signify struggles as learning to succeed in life and not as disappointment. The brown colour keeps reminding me of my ancestral home and will always keep me grounded in whatever I achieve, and wherever I go.

All through my childhood, I was discouraged from not taking up art as a career, and with no access to formal art materials, scarp materials became my medium of expression. It is from my early childhood I realized that nothing is a waste. Overlapping materials of different substances in my recent art practice reflects my belief in the uncertainties of life, yet trying to balance with bringing everything together. While jute as a dominant medium in my works signifies strength, the line drawings inspired by Madhubani paintings mirror my overwhelming desire to search for stability in all the chaos.