PRESS RELEASE*
Sajal Sarkar
OPEN ENDED
ArtsIndia, Palo Alto
January 19th – February 11th, 2007:
Opening Reception, Friday January 19th 2007, 6-9 pm
Artist will be in attendance
Sajal Sarkar is an Indian artist to watch. Within the jubilant realm of contemporary Indian art, his works stand out as being individual and extremely powerful. Sarkar is a rising artist, both critically acclaimed and with numerous sold out shows to his credit. He will come to California for the official opening of his one man exhibition at ArtsIndia West and locals will have the opportunity to meet and speak with him on January 19th from 6-9pm, 2007.
In his work he focuses on the human figure – more specifically the male human figure. These figurative works displays his undeniable skills as a draughtsman, inherent from his academic training at the Government Art College, Calcutta and the M.S. University of Baroda. He admits that all of his drawings have a reflection of the self, an introspective feel enveloping spiritualism and revelation. These figures are often depicted solo, as the reverence to anatomical beauty in 'On the Terrace' displays, but increasingly his works repeat the figure – either as a mirror image, as in the aptly titled diptych 'Mirror Image' or as a double or triple, as in his work entitled 'Self Splitting'. Sarkar explains that this mirroring and doubling comes from a kind of detachment of the self, as he explains "a search for a neutral standpoint". Through these compositions he allows himself to stand outside of the immediate and see and question himself as an outsider.
With the exception of 'On the Terrace', in which the leaves of plants are visible below the opening of the terrace on which the figure stands, all other works in this exhibition have non-representational abstract color backgrounds. This succeeds in giving the figures a heightened intensity – they truly are the main focus of the works, their poses, and gestures, resonated by their accompanying color areas, create the emotion feel of each work.
The artist was born in Kolkata and received his Bachelors in Painting from the Government College of Art and Craft in Kolkata in 1989 and his Masters in Print-making at the Maharaj Sayaji University at Baroda in 1995. The artist is both interested in and influenced by many facets of the Arts including poetry, classical music, philosophy and literature. He currently lives and works in Baroda and will be in Palo Alto and available for interview over the period of January 18th–21st.
For more information on these upcoming events, contact:
Nuala Mellett, Gallery Manager, nuala@artsindia.com (650)321-4900