Over a long period of time, man has desacralized nature, as John Ruskin puts it, looking at it merely as a source of raw materials to be exploited, stripping it of its mystery and beauty. Our techno-economic progress has reduced the sacred distance that once separated us from nature, giving us a sense that we own and control it. Today, in the age of decaying ecology, we are less concerned with material progress than reparative justice, valuing nature – its rivers, forests and oceans – before we pay the price. The exhibition shows art has the power to revitalize our bonding with nature, revealing that it remains an inexhaustible source of our creative feelings and imagination.
The seven artists have their distinctive ways of looking at nature. While the paintings by Kartick Chandra Pyne depict it as integral to his fantastic imagination, Manas Naskar, Santanu Debnath, and Mrinal Kanti Gayen represent unsullied nature unaffected by the modern world, celebrating its beauty and diversity. Beside them are artists like Puja Mondal and Ghana Shyam Latua, who are critical in their representation of the natural world. They use it not as a normal phenomenon but as a context for contemporary discourses, such as nostalgia, urbanization and surveillance. The meticulous detailings draw us closer to their works, enabling us to unravel the truth hidden in their beautiful appearances. Besides being a painter, Arunima Choudhury is an avid gardener, and one needs to know her love for nature to understand her works. Her luminous paintings, which reveal her unique vision and feminine sensibilities, do not separate humans from the natural world.
The exhibition shouts no environmental slogans; instead, it is driven by the impulse to bridge the apartness between humans and the natural world, establishing a deep, subterranean connection between them.
