Paradox & Dynamism in Avijit Roy's Art
November 2009
The artist in Avijit Roy is explorative and adventurous. Through two decades of art practice, he has build up an oeuvre composite of multilayered concepts in a variety of mediums.
His art is like a mansion, that houses many chambers; lithographs, Etchings, Chinecolle, Drawings, Acrylic paintings and bronzes; the artist has expertly handled many mediums. His multifarious talent is manifest in this exhibition that showcases many mediums with multidimensional thematic contents.
Just out of M.S. University Baroda, he started his journey as an artist, concentrating on lithography with representation of "the bull" symbolizing power, energy and brute strength. It was a self-projection of a young man seeing his reflection in the raw and potent energy of the bull - a reaction of angst against the slow, almost static society. His bull is a dynamic force enlivening and adding, an extra dimension to its surroundings. This auto biographical element is a very obvious under tone of his work, and continues to lace his art up to the present times.
Some years back he started juxtapositioning the contrary images of "beauty" and "boldness" in his 'Bold and Beauty' serious in various mediums with a preponderance of chinecolle. The 'cleaver-knife' took OR multiple interpretations as the artist imbued it with many meanings.
A row of knives symbolized society but simultaneously a single knife textured differently, took on the persona of an individual. This expressed the concept that at one level we belong to a mass, yet at another level we all have individual trails that sets us apart. Though we have to bond with other humans to form a strong social base, yet we retain our individual characteristic and sensitivities that make us special. Many works in the knife series, though untitled represent a combination of violence and power - a truthful reflection of the real situation in contemporary human society. Men are perpetually seeking the potent intoxication of power though indulgences in violence and power - game.
Avijit further develops his own unique art language by imbueing his knives with new metaphorical meanings. The 'knife' is an obvious symbol of strife and problematic violence. He converts these harsh negative feelings associated with the knife into an aesthetic search by seeing beauty in the rainbow hued motife of the knives. The blood - stains splashed that frame certain forms may be similes for violence - yet the artist is again seeing the red of blood through his aesthetic prism-red that is both bold and beautiful in its flamboyant brilliance. Thus the artist subverts the usual symbolisms of violence by his search for the beauty. The mortifs of knives and blood stains morph into life - giving forces, building up a complex imagery of forceful dynamism and beauty in both movements interpretation. The viewer is aroused into an awareness of his social and political environment.
The sharpness of the knife cuts and separates, but it can use the "cut" to heal and bind and thus bring disparate elements together that is the hidden paradox of Avijit symbolism - and also a reflection of the paradox inherent in the chinecole medium, where a soft pliable paper is layered on a tough thick paper through Lithopress. The artist has changed the dialogue associated with the knife by giving it human characteristics and makes it a symbol of his search for beauty.
And yes, there are covert political threads in the tapestry of Avijit's art, especially noted in the arrangements of his bull - sculpture - bronzes. Even the titles are suggestive; "Subjugation", "Confrontation" and "Conjegation". Although there is a beauty of the act of Bull Fighting and other arrangement but on the other hand it symbolize-Humans playing political games of ganging up against a single person-big power against on small power, or two different human establishments aggressively confronting each other on even minor issues - human society is fraught with subconscious social violence.
BINA MISHRA - ARTIST