If happiness meets sadness and the future meets the present, it would pretty much look like art created by Swayamprabha Parida, Purnna Behera and Mrinmoy Debbarma, who are showcasing their work in the exhibition Topos of Imagination.
Accepting good and bad
Art always provided Swayamprabha Parida an escape from routine. “I paint what I can’t express,” she says. Most of her paintings, including this untitled series, show a girl, surrounded by colourful flowers in a dark setting. “I try to take life with its good and bad and here too darkness symbolises problems, but the flowers show how happiness can thrive in the most unlikely corner,”she says.
In her six artworks, you also notice the emphasis on the right hand of the girl in the painting. There are few works where the bone of the girl is revealed and that doesn’t exist without reason. She says, “A few years back, I broke a bone in my right hand. It hurts even today and I can’t paint for long hours. Since it formed such an important part of my life, I created it.”
The questioner
“While growing up in Tripura, my childhood was surrounded by militants. When I grew up I realised that terrorism has cropped up everywhere. So I question everything, including myself through my artwork to see where we’re going wrong,” says Mrinmoy Debbarma.
In all three works, Mrinmoy has painted himself and the cartoon characters Tom and Jerry. He says, “From video games to cartoons, everything we see these days has so much violence, so I question that through my work.” Mrinmoy also shows a variety of elements, from rock formations in the city, to the usage of Telugu calligraphy. “I’ve been using speech bubbles in my artwork, since a long time; when I came to Hyderabad I was fascinated with Telugu so I used it, the city’s rock formations are stunning and I used that as well.”
Future-past
When Purnna Behera came to the city, he saw that the city had large buildings and no space for birds. “In our bid to build our dream home, we destroy that of animals. So I question that through my work,” he says.
Of the two works he has put up, one shows a woodpecker questioning a man after he destroys the bird’s home. The other artwork shows two women, a woman with wings looking towards the future and a woman in black looking at the past.
