In ‘Journey, Past is Present’ — a special retrospective of Sudip Roy’s works, there is great temporal fluidity, as real, imagined and utopian visions move back and forth, blurring the frontiers of time and space. This comes through in his watercolour studies of India’s architectural heritage, including buildings such as the dome of the Taj Mahal hotel in Mumbai, the Victoria Terminus and Victoria Memorial.
Sudip is adept at capturing the essence of the building, the fragrance of bygone days and its significance to current urban innerscapes. Having being trained in the Bengal School style, there are landscape paintings of Banaras and the countryside, often painted in the painstaking wash technique. The other large body of work is figurative, where great range of treatment and tone is demonstrated in portraiture, model-studies and imagined forms. Some are imbued with great energy and movement while others are languorous female nudes, like Odalisques, alluringly exposed to the viewer’s gaze. Yet another set of female figures depict nymphs, alasakanyas and surasundaris, ensconced in the niches of Orissan temples or rekha deuls that are hinted at through doorways and gates. Many of the women are inspired by Satyajit Ray and Tagore: Charulata and Banalata are partially hidden in half profiles and back views. Their bodies, thoughts and lives, concealed behind curtains and downturned eyes.
Sudip has a large repertoire of techniques and themes. He had painted Bideshini, a Japanese lady, in Oriental wash technique and also a Mughal prince, that resembles portraits made by the seventeenth century artist Hashim. His recent work reflects his forays into abstraction and multimedia, in which he had juxtaposed sculptural forms hammered onto pristine steel with painted canvas. The retrospective reveals Sudip Roy as someone whose work focusses on the fundamentals of art.
— Dr Seema Bawa is
an art historian,
curator and critic