The Land and the Lore / Shrimanti Saha

Shrimanti Saha's drawings were one of the most delicate works at the Young Subcontinent exhibition. She works with drawings on paper, and collages them to create new mythical story structures. Shrimanti is an avid reader, and much of her art is worked out through her readings of Edward Lear's Book of Nonsense, other nonsense literature, the tales of Shakti and so on. Her drawings in turn results into accidental mixtures of characters and environments from different readings / settings, thus mirroring the working out of cultural processes. 

In doing so, Shrimanti is able to put together different timescapes together, invoking the viewer to read into disparate histories at one, bringing in a contentious comparison. Some of her panels also reveal the actual confrontation of different histories in real time - for example, the different practices of worship in everyday India and its rejection by the British; or the ritualistic versus the scientific approaches to life, and so on. By employing such methods, Shrimanti is able to create soft surreal imageries that playfully tickle the viewer.

Living in contemporary India is much like living multiple histories at once. Our urban environment is full of such absurdities - Temples installed with CCTV cameras, railways as theatres of religious exchanges, mobile phones used for attending ritualistic ceremonies, cows fed on streets for promotions, gadgets worshipped on festivals with garlands and kumkum - all such practices often intrigue us about which time and history are we living in? The co-existence of traditional and modern lifestyles in contemporary India is gently provoked through Saha's paintings. It gives us a moment to reflect, ponder and think about the way in which our lives are collaged. Further, they also have a speculative quality, for they create fictitious historical futures - extending both, in the past and the future.

- Anuj Daga

Artist Statement:

My work is a compilation of detailed collaged drawings, depicting allegories of historical significance and mythological references; mingled with personal experiences.

They are rendered from the imagination of the present and placed with figures which are depicted like objects/shapes (collaged paper mounted on board); denoting a sense of fragmentation and the feeling of being embedded in the collective memory.

The intention of the work is to explore the possibilities of drawing, collage and storytelling while commenting on the ideas of identity, exploitation and the present as a conse­quence of the past.

- Shrimanti Saha