He is an artist who has always been fascinated by nature and people around him. “They inspire me to create and to understand life better,” says the artist. Rightly termed as a ‘genuine searcher’ by none other than India’s celebrated art critic and connoisseur Kekoo Gandhi, he is also an artist who does the talking in a designer’s language, being a faculty member of the design department of the Indian Institute of Technology, Guwahati (IITG).
He is Utpal Barua whose latest incorporation in his curriculum vitae is a doctorate degree — a first in the field of design in India. This academician artist-designer, despite his busy nine-to-five schedule at IITG, finds time to indulge in creativity transforming his feelings onto canvas with colours.
“The relationship of human beings, their feelings, joy and happiness, sadness and their complex behaviour stimulate me to think and to analyze certain deeper aspects of life. I take these aspects as a subject matter of my paintings,” says Utpal who was born at Tezpur in 1960. “In my works,” says the artist, “nature comes across as a symbol of the inner void of human life where flying butterflies appear as a symbol of hope and expectation, though sadness and loneliness are often predominant characters in these paintings.”
Armed with a masters degree in fine arts from the famed Visva Bharati University, Kolkata, Utpal has also been closely monitoring the folk culture and craft practices of Assam in particular and the northeaster region in general. He is also candid enough when he says, “as folk culture is a living reality in Assam and the region per se, folk forms have entered my art efforts.” He adds, “I am particularly fascinated by the quality of abstraction in our folk art tradition and I always try to exploit these elements of abstraction in my own canvas.”
And it’s not surprising that the subject he chose for his doctoral thesis had a touch of folk art and craft traditions of the region. ‘A study on design elements in craft practices with special reference to textile and basketry of Northeast India’ was the topic that made him the country’s first doctorate in the field of design, IITG being the proud institution to inscribe its name in the academic history of India by awarding this degree. Dr Deb Kumar Chakraborty, a former faculty member of the prestigious National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad and currently associated with the design department of IITG, was the guide of Utpal.
As an artist he has more than 25 national level and over ten international level exhibitions to his credit. His works were displayed at Lalit Kala Akademi, AIFACS and Triveni in New Delhi, Jahangir Art Gallery in Mumbai, Birla Academy and the Academy of Fine Arts in Kolkata, Bharat Bhavan in Bhopal, Solid Art Gallery in Chandigarh, etc, besides in group exhibitions in countries like UK, USA, Canada, Australia, Indonesia, Singapore, etc.
When this Shantiniketan-trained artist held his first solo exhibition at Lalit Kala Akademi in the national capital in 1999, he received widespread appreciation from art lovers and connoisseurs alike as also rave reviews in the media. “An artist worth keeping an eye on,” was what leading fortnightly Outlook wrote, terming him as one of the brightest among the new breed of Indian painters. Acclaimed award-winning filmmaker and our own Jahnu Barua, who inaugurated Utpal’s solo show at Jahangir Art Gallery in Mumbai in June, 2006, was overwhelmed by his creations —“a new and fresh pleasing experience for me” — and thanked him for making Assam and the Northeast proud.
And rightly the region has more reasons to rejoice as Utpal has been projected as an ‘Indian master’ in two recent international art exhibitions of contemporary artists in Indonesia and Singapore. Organized as part of the diamond jubilee celebration of India’s independence, the art exhibitions were held from August through October under the auspices of Indian Artists Network, an organization of professional and award-winning artists of India, with close cooperation from the Indian embassies there and the Jawaharlal Nehru Indian Cultural Centre of Jakarta. Utpal was clubbed alongside greats like late KM Shenoy, Prof Chandrakant Channe, Dr Isa R Mohammad and Arvind Patel as ‘Indian masters’ and they were provided exclusive gallery space in the exhibitions that showcased around 80 paintings by 50 well-known artists of India.
A not-for-profit organization, Indian Artists Network, which is headed by award-winning artist Ajit Vahadane, works for exposure of talented Indian artists showcasing their works to the world audience through various exhibitions abroad. It also has a plan to set up a studio and art school besides an old-age home in Mumbai where retired artists can stay and teach art to the younger generation, besides working with their creations in the studio at the most reasonable fee affordable for them.
The exhibition in Indonesia opened at the Galeri Cipta II of Taman Ismail Markuzi in Jakarta on August 27 at a glittering function attended by distinguished guests, art lovers and connoisseurs. Indian ambassador to Indonesia Navrekha Sharma inaugurated the exhibition. A number of advertisements were splashed in Indonesian newspapers and art glossies like Visual Art and C-Art. And what’s heartening is that a work of Utpal was prominently featured in one of the advertisements. A neatly designed voluminous catalogue, featuring the artists’ profiles and works, was also brought out on the occasion. This catalogue, which can well be termed a collector’s item for its rich and wonderful content, was sent to several art galleries spread across the world.
The exhibition later moved on to Singapore to be a part of the city-country’s prestigious event ‘Art Singapore’ at Suntec where some 80 major galleries from 15 countries around the world took part to showcase their masterpieces.
Prominently covered in the print as well as electronic media in both the countries, the exhibitions were widely appreciated by the art lovers there. The art critics and connoisseurs alike were highly impressed by the vibrant art scene in India while showering lavish praise on the works of different artists.
Ask how does it feels to be in international limelight, Utpal is polite enough to give a slice of the credit to IITG where he is serving as an assistant professor of visual communication in the department of design. “IITG has given me a new lease of life. In fact, my new identity has helped me create an international platform,” he says.
In the capacity of an academician, Utpal has presented and published a number of papers in various national and international conferences. At Dibrugarh University, he participated in a national conference on laser and its application where he presented a paper ‘Theory of colour application and its scientific evaluation’ and at CCS University, Meerut he spoke on ‘Nature of colour and modern art’ at the national conference on laser and spectroscopy. In September 2004, he had been to Robert Gordon University of Scotland to attend an international conference on ‘Challenging crafts’ where he presented the paper ‘Contemporareity of the folk: Northeast Indian crafts’ that dealt with one of his favourites — the traditional art and craft of the Northeast.
In his new-found high-tech environment at IITG, Utpal has also been experimenting with abstraction with computer-aided visualizations and some of his ‘digital works’ were displayed at Glasgow during his Scotland sojourn. However, paint, brush and canvas are still dear to this artist who has won several awards and scholarships, including the fellowship from the Union Ministry of Human Resource Development, scholarship from Sheridon College, Ontario in Canada and the coveted AIFACS Award.
He recalls vividly the series of paintings he created in the late 1980s when insurgency made deep inroads into society affecting the very social fabric where the common people were the only sufferers. Tortured people with their innocent gaze in the gloomy atmosphere... moon transformed into a human bone are some of the characteristics of these paintings. His latest series Inscapes, which have already touched the number 60, predominantly exploits geometrical shapes and bright colours and tries to capture the essence of the variegated land and culture of the Northeast.
One significant aspect of Utpal Barua’s paintings is that he tries to convey a message through them — that of hope. And as the optimist artist thinks, there’s always light at the end of the tunnel.
