Taj Bengal Promenade Lounge will be displaying the works of Sambhu Saha from 13th to 27th Feb 2012, 10.30 am to 10.30 pm daily.
The exhibition will then be on display at Tejas Gallery, 11 Mayfair Road from 27th Feb to 10th Mar 2012, 12.30 pm to 7.30 pm daily except Sundays.
“JOURNEYS” reflects the artist’s more contemplative side – the works take the viewer down village roads, through Bengal countryside, across the water in village boats, to the ghats – the end of all journeys.
Born in 1975, SAMBHU SAHA belongs to the rare breed of young, contemporary Indian Impressionist painters.
Sambhu drew his inspiration from the legendary Gopal Ghosh, who worked with water-colours as well as mixed mediums, never following the Western academic style. Instead, his inspiration was classical Chinese in the rendering of brushwork, and Western Impressionism, in the application of colour.
Sambhu too uses relatively small, thin, yet visible brush strokes and open compositions, with an emphasis on the accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities.
The Impressionist style of painting, popularized by artists like Manet, Monet and Renoir, rejects the use of colours in a grammatical manner. There is instead a concentration on the general impression produced by a scene, and the use of unmixed primary colors and small strokes to simulate actual reflected light.
In Shambhu’s work one sees that freely brushed colours are given primacy over line. He uses short thick strokes to quickly re-create the sensation rather than re-creating the subject and its details. Paint is often applied impasto, unmixed. His more contemplative work has darker tones, while his village and ghat scenes are done with small strokes of colour, placed side by side to produce the effect of light. Wet paint is placed into wet paint without waiting for successive applications to dry, producing softer edges and an intermingling of colour….but the optical mixing of colours occurs in the eye of the viewer.
Shambu often paints in the outdoors to capture the transient effects of sunlight or the shadowy effects of twilight. Like photographers, he is inspired to capture the moment. But his art goes a step further… it has a subjectivity that photography cannot include. His paintings are his ‘perceptions’ – and this allows him to exploit his unique style of painting.
