Art Exhibition in Kolkata – Harvest of Winter: “A Versatile Voyage”

                             “Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.”

                                                                                                                              – Thomas Merton

This moment of truth was significantly prevalent in the latest art exhibition in Kolkata, “The Harvest of Winter” by team “Chhobi-o-Ghor” or formally COG INDIA ART FOUNDATION, which was held at Birla Academy of Art and Culture, one of the prestigious art galleries in Kolkata, from 2nd to 5th of December,2021 as “Art” in a broader perspective reached its epoch not only through the flurry of colours but also through the evocative & potency revealing thoughts of many young and lesser-known artists.

This is the second in gallery fine art exhibition by “Chhobi-o-Ghor” hitherto, and the first one titled “Let the spring come” was organized in Nandalal Bose art gallery in ICCR, Kolkata, in the first half of 2021. In between, they organized online art exhibitions in their own domain. 

Notable guests Prof.Vidyanand Jha (Professor of behavioural studies in IIM, Kolkata) and eminent artists like Umesh Jana, Mihir Kayal, Sarfuddin Ahmed, and Joyeeta enlightened the art show on an inaugural day as they shared their pure wisdom about sustainability in art and life. “Chhobi-o-Ghor” or COG INDIA ART FOUNDATION is dedicated to providing art exhibition opportunities for both eminent and lesser-known artists in the major art galleries in India.

It all started from a call for submissions or call for entry in early October, and the team worked tirelessly to select the best work of art for the exhibition. One more surprising idea by Ankita Roy, the founder of the group, was giving saplings of floras to every participating artist of this group show which enlivened the bloom of the inauguration ceremony.

As the team presented their catchphrase that “Every art needs a home”, the exhibition efficiently created ample space for artworks of different mediums and diverse themes, making it an arts festival rather than a mere arts and crafts show. 

Almost 100 Indian artists with their inherent qualities displayed over 150 paintings and craft items and around 50 photographs, which reflected the happenings and hassles of the outer world as well as the dilemmas and dialects of the inner world, the psyche. 

Its versatility will provoke an art enthusiast as she enters the gallery and takes a deep breath amidst the mandalas by Manjita Ghosh, then, as she advances, the voyeur of colours by Arka Bose, Payel Bannerjee along with the resin crafts o Rajanya Roy will engage their mind to discover more through the beauty of landscapes, and detailed ink arts by Sanjoy Pal.

After that, as the “Decaying of Psyche” and Trina Bhattacharya’s portrait of “Forgotten Face” starts infiltrating her deeper notions, some aesthetic photographs of the city-life and sub-urbs, especially the snaps like “Bubble Dreams” by Jishnu Sarkar and “The Young Traveler “by Shamim Nauroz will recollect and relocate the missing sparkles of the mind. 

Now, if the mind gets claustrophobic in the mounting cityscapes, turn around, and you will discover some mind-soothing outdoor landscapes of rural rhetoric, as intimate to the Earth as the painter Sri Saikat Mondal, curator of the team who successfully manages his creativity to flourish with an expressionist mind, be it pastel or wet brush, keeping the soft-core of nature intact.

Now let’s come to the eminent artiste’s corner. This place is a crucible of connotations. The tension of the “Afternoon” by Sushmita Barat Karmakar, you can’t leave it without a second look. Then the “Composition” by Sri Mihir Kayal perceives the beauty beyond our dimension and creates a perfect sync between the conscious and subconscious thoughts. The “So-called Development” by Sri Umesh Jana successfully showed the camouflaged dissensions of our societal growth. The “Baul” by Sri Sarfuddin Ahmed had so much elegance and peace in it that the more you delve into it, the more it will consume you.

As you approach the last corner, “The Anatomy of the Chessboard” will seize that immediacy. It is a quasi-realist treatment of subtle thoughts that tries to catch the ephemeral tension of an intense chess match. In the end, some fine still-life studies by Dr Jayanti Bhattacharya will engage you. Also, Shehnaz Parveen’s “Fhaguner Rong” is going to excite you with its rustic rhythms.

Apart from these, two distinct Indian art forms, Dhokra and Pattachitra, were promoted in the exhibitions. 

The “Dokra” or “Dhokra” is a non-ferrous metal casting technique using a lost-wax method that creates mostly folk motifs and originates in the Bankura district of West Bengal.

The “Patachitra Workshop” (traditional cloth-based scroll painting that originates in Bengal and Odissa, mainly depicts mythical narratives and folktales with intricate details) by Uttam Chitrakar and Sonali Chitrakar. The workshop was so engaging that the apprentices learned to paint the scroll, but the instructors also chanted some folk songs celebrating the fables and fiction attached to it.       

Chhobi-O-Ghor also promoted the marketing of art and the importance of art exhibitions. During the exhibition period, just a search on “art shows near me” showed “Harvest of Winter” at the top of the list. The estimated footfall was more than 1500, which is way above the craft festivals people visits as art tourism. Eight artworks and numerous craft items were sold during the art exhibition in Kolkata, and three paintings were sold post-exhibition.

“Harvest of winter’21” quenched the thirst of many art lovers and art enthusiasts through the deliberate simplicities in an exhibition curated by the “Chobi-O-Ghor” as they gave a platform to many of the art apprentices whose fame are yet to unfold. Looking forward to their future art exhibitions of 2022 and beyond.                           

                                                                              “Creativity is contagious; pass it on.”

                                                                                                                              – Albert Einstein