Still Water and Razor Wire

Samindra Majumdar

1. Fossils, stone and morning water | Acrylic on canvas | 2.5 X 2.5 ft

An almost liquid blue paint runs off the fossilised form of what could have been a hibiscus blossom. The flattened and dead bloom, as well as the withered leaf next to it, quietly in dialogue with the vitality of the colour. The tensile, undulating lines animating the canvas.

It always happens to other people | Acrylic, ink, marble dust ,rope, jute, rice paper on canvas | 5 ft 6 inches x 5 ft 6 inches

A square canvas about war, with a wire mesh that creates distance between the viewer and the battlefield behind it. If you get close, the image blurs while as you move back the battlefield gets clearer. War to the luckier amongst us is almost fiction -- to be read and commented upon or gawked at from the safety of our armchairs. The artist has brilliantly created this effect of fictional distance, most appropriate to this subject, by using thick pigment, ink, marble dust, rope and jute on canvas.

Splash | Acrylic on canvas | 30 X 30 inches

Thick pigment and bright white light add to the drama of this picture.

Mountain, logs and barb wire | Acrylic on canvas | 3 X 3 ft

Texture, sweeping lines and the illusion of speed add drama to this expressionist image of a mountain scene drawing the viewer along on a journey. The twisted razor wire in the foreground adds an element of tension.

Stone, cocoon and lake | Acrylic on canvas | 2.5 X 2.5 ft

A luminescent body of water and a cocoon like form on land with fluid oozing out. Scattered stones, black strands woven around a rock, but nowhere else any sign of life. The electricity of the lines drawn across the biscuit coloured earth connects the lifeless stones with the life inside the cocoon that lingers at the edge of the radiant lake. The slithering lines across the canvas are remarkable in how they connect various elements creating a unity of design that ripples with energy.

The lake after rain | Acrylic on canvas | 30 X 54 inches

The soft inky blackness of the water is talking in whispers with the world around -- fresh and rejuvenated by the rain. The colour of the banks seem to be bleeding into the colour of the still water.There is a sense of the mystical in this image

The ancient river 1 | Acrylic on canvas | 32 X 22 inches

A fluorescent blue stream flowing through barren land with a rock edict and a roll of concertina wire in the foreground. The past in conversation with the present as nature stands mute spectator. The coil of barb wire at the same time marking out boundaries perhaps also pointing to the impossibility of engaging the past.

Memory wrapped | Acrylic on canvas | 23.5 X 47.5 inches

The painter becomes a topologist playing with curved spaces, using something akin to wire frame modelling to create vortexes, giving the canvas a curvature, sometimes blowing it off the picture frame.

Untitled | Acrylic on canvas | 2 X 2 ft

The colour of the lake imparts a shimmering, oneiric quality to this image. The conversation between the past and the present goes on. A submerged ruin, a buried rock edict and the roll of concertina wire recurs again.