Shubhojoy Mitra (Nepal)
Digital Artist
After joining the Government College of Arts and Crafts in the early nineties, I held two exhibitions of drawings and paintings at L’Alliance Française de Calcutta (now L’Alliance Française du Bengale) in 1992 and 1995 with artist and friend Sudip Banik.
During this period, I also travelled and lived in Kathmandu, Nepal and was associated with the late artist Kalyan Rai (https://www.facebook.com/kalyanrai69) from Dharan who studied in Viswa Bharati, Shantiniketan before moving on from Nepal to Japan and US. I took part in an annual exhibition at Kathmandu with him and was associated with art workshops at Kamal Niwas of the Jesuit Training Centre initiated by Fr, Cap Miller for a while.
In the late nineties, I went fully digital experimenting with multimedia and programming and created my first Virtual Art Gallery to exhibit art by different artists including my own creations. In late 1999, I helped co-organize THE 1ST INDIA INTERNATIONAL DIGITAL ART EXHIBITION at Oxford Art Gallery, Calcutta representing 12 artists from all over the world (Introductory article: http://www.lastplace.com/EXHIBITS/India3/InsideOutside/insideoutside1.htm). Exhibition documentation: http://www.lastplace.com/EXHIBITS/India/)
Torso
By Shubhojoy Mitra, Nepal
The human body, and indeed the body of any living organism, especially au naturel exhibits remarkable symmetry which we perceive from various perspectives in a manner that seems to break down the inherent rigidity of matter in a continuous, fluid and asymmetrical interplay of segments shapeshifting into new and often delightful configurations every now and then. The intact wholeness and its integrity at every moment are fascinating because no matter what the body shape, no matter what its excesses or lack, a body in its bare form always seems to possess an intriguing aesthetic often bringing into focus casually in all its vulnerability the central mystery of our origins and our transitory existence. In my search to discover the essential conditions that may define our reality by stripping down to the barest elements all that possesses plasticity, observing and recording from life the forms and structures, even fragments of motile elements, the inescapable symmetry of living form and its essential asymmetric appearance have often driven me into an obsessive ritual of attempting to reproduce the essence of organicity. It is as much a matter of reflecting on the human condition as it is of grappling with the questions of existence since the beginning of time.
Title: Torso
Medium: Digital drawing
Year: 2015
