The travelling artist

Known for his itinerant spirit, painter Paresh Maity’s works are inspired by his journeys.

Paresh Maity, the prolific painter known for his luminous water colours (and lately oils and mixed media on canvas, photographs and sculptures), is back with yet another solo exhibition. ‘The World on a Canvas’ is a large show with 130 of Maity’s artworks, some of them very large, done over the last 30 years. Presented by Art Alive Gallery, and mounted at the Lalit Kala Akademi in the capital yesterday, it consists primarily of the paintings that have arisen from his many travels in India and abroad.

There’s also a large-format picture book on the paintings, with Sharmila Tagore providing a contextual essay on Maity’s art, and photographs by Nemai Ghosh, who has been accompanying the artist on his travels for many years now and shooting him at work.

Maity is known for his itinerant spirit. “I have travelled all over the world, from China in the east to Mexico in the west. Some places like Venice I have visited up to 14 times.” ‘Venetian Odyssey’, the result of these sojourns, showed at Debrecen (Hungary), Berlin and Mumbai. Another favourite destination, Kerala, has also been the subject of many of Maity’s canvases, some of which were put together in the solo, ‘An Enchanted Journey — Paresh Maity’s Kerala,’ in 2008.

Interestingly, all of approximately 80 paintings at ‘The World...’ are being shown for the first time; they come from the artist’s own collection and not from collectors or galleries. “Every time I did a show I would keep a few canvases for myself,” Maity reveals. “So I would not encourage too many people to come to my studio.” Thankfully, all the works are on sale, barring a few early ones, says Sunaina Anand, owner of Art Alive.

Massiveness has been the leitmotif of Maity’s works in recent years, not just the oils and mixed media some which measure 14x15 feet, but also the watercolours — 6.5x8 feet — almost unheard of in the medium. Even his sculptures are gigantic — an installation of five-foot-tall bronze ants made of Enfield Bullet parts, and a 12-foot-high face of Durga. “They weigh as much as 800-1,000 kg and will probably need a crane to bring them into the exhibition.”

“Growing up in a rural setting in Tamluk, ants were a part of my life. I was always struck by the way they moved in single file, one after the other. It was a discipline that inspired me even at an early age,” Maity reminisces.

Film is a medium that Maity has lately added to his repertoire, and ‘The World...’ includes two short documentaries that he’s made in the past 12 months, financing them from his own pocket: The Magic of Monsoons — Montage, Moments, Memories shot all over, from Kolkata to Mumbai to Kanyakumari, capturing natural sounds, and The Mystic Melody — A Day in the Golden Desert, that he shot last winter in Rajasthan. “These are films that relate to my art; they don’t have a narrative, but are abstractions — there is the sunrise, mist, there are people but more as shadowed presences.”Films clearly are his latest artistic fix, but Maity doesn’t think there’s all that much difference between painting and making films — “It’s like milk from which you can you can make curd, paneer, butter... the root is the same.”

It seems to work both ways, going by Tagore’s essay in the book. “I have been following Paresh’s work over the years,” says the actress, “and Nemai Ghosh, I have known for a very long time.”(Ghosh is best known as the Ray Photographer, the man who followed Satyajit Ray with his camera through the best part of his life, clicking him at home, on the sets. Tagore began her career with Ray’s Devi, and starred in many of his films. It was Tagore, reveals Maity, who gifted Ghosh his first camera.)

Tagore also possesses four of Maity’s canvases —“bought years ago when they were still affordable,” she laughs — along with a few by artists such as Thota Vaikuntam and Husain. “Also don’t forget that I am the great-granddaughter of Gaganendranath Tagore (one of the early modernists painters),” Tagore points to her family’s long tradition with the visual arts.