BEYOND THE HORIZON – SUDIP ROY

I visited Sudip Roy’s studio in Greater Kailash part-1 park upon his invitation to view his recent works. on a rain-spattered afternoon, when the light outside was already fading, we spoke of Baharampur, where he grew up—a place to which my own memories of summer and grandparents are intimately linked.

Exploring parables of life, love and death, Sudip Roy works on compositions that excavate memory and roots. in Baharampur, he would visit the medieval archaeological sites and discover the history of Murshidabad the erstwhile capital of Bengal where the brave Nawab Sirajauddullah defended his kingdo against the British. that research, and the smudged remains of his own early memories would make their way to his paintings, the blurred contours of mausoleums and mansions that stood in mute testimony to bygone days of glory. As a student at the Government College of Art and Crafts, he made a name for himself and topped his class, but true education came later. in Roy’s own words, he would actually be able to express himself only when he was guided by Mr. Ebrahim Alkazi, who was the first to motivate this series when he started, that made a deep impression on his mind.

The new paintings he guided me to were bright, textured with the illusion of crushed flowers, in crimsons, greens, blues and saffron. despite the lyrical abstraction, the hints of form as much as the subtle emotive content were hard to disregard. his evolution to this stage had been gradual. in his early works he had drawn inspiration from his memories of Murshidabad, where the grandeur of the past had gone, leaving behind a legacy that was slowly fading. the architectural references gradually gave way to an ascetic pureness. in the present time, therefore, the ethereal expanses bear only a passing resemblance to familiar landscapes. if at all, they resonate with a meditative spirituality that is based on his present equation with nature and his acceptance of life with its vicissitudes.

Ina Puri