The Collective Studio: Lecture by Indrapramit Roy

The Collective Studio will be presenting

The Light within: Paintings of Rabindranath

An illustrated lecture by Indrapramit Roy

on Saturday the 19th of March 2011 at 6 pm

Venue: Surendran Nair's Studio

C-1 Oasis- Behind Essar Petrol Pump – Sama Savli Road - Baroda

RSVP -98240 69767

Synopsis of the presentation

Amongst all the creative fields that Rabindranath ventured in

with his Midas- touch, painting was the last. It is common

knowledge that he got started while graphically playing

with the marks and scratches in his manuscript and gave

them decorative shapes. These ‘doodles’ were a case of making

virtue out of defect.

His first attempts at painting were tentative and

full of self-doubt but very soon he was making

much more ambitious works. They included abstract

shapes, portraits, human figures, figure-groups with

architectural elements, landscapes, flora and fauna both

observed and fantastic. Rabindranath’s maturation from a

‘timorous amateur’ to a confident and sophisticated explorer

of the realm of the visual happened in a surprisingly short span of time.

Despite being an early champion of Raja Ravi Varma

and subsequently the Bengal school in his own works

Tagore kept studiously away from the trappings of both

literary content and the nationalistic concerns of his peers. His technique,

theme and approach were fresh, unsentimental, unorthodox and modern.

The presentation will delve into the specifics of these with the help of

illustrations.

Indrapramit Roy is an artist who currently teaches at the painting department in the Faculty of Fine Arts M.S University of Baroda. He studied printmaking (BFA) at the Visva-Bharati University of Santiniketan and painting (MFA) at the Faculty of Fine Arts of M.S. University of Baroda, India. Subsequently he was awarded the Inlaks Scholarship to study MA Painting (1990-92) at the Royal College of Art, London, which also included a term each at Cite des Arts, Paris and Hochschule der Kunst, Berlin. He has shown extensively in Delhi, Bombay, Calcutta, Bangalore and Chennai. He has 15 solo exhibitions and over 70 group shows to his credit. He also designs books. His illustrations include ‘Antigone’, ‘King Oedipus’, ‘Bacchae’ and ‘Hippolytus’: four retellings of Greek tragedies produced by Tara publishing, Chennai and published by the Getty Museum, Los Angeles. ‘Antigone’ won the best book design award in New York book fair, 2002 and ‘Bacchae’ got the Association of American Museum Publishers’ Award in 2005. ‘Hungry Lion’ published by Annick press, Canada won the Alcuin Award in 1998.