Anant Art Gallery is pleased to present Pappu Bardhan's online solo exhibition titled Patronus.
Pappu Bardhan's body of works explores burgeoning cityscapes that impact dwindling flora and fauna. He imagines a Patronus, a corporeal guardian, in the image of a barasingha (swamp deer), that were found in abundance at the outskirts of Kolkata- his home city, in a hope to regain the lost glory of his surroundings.
While acknowledging a variety of influences in his work, he claims that his images generally have a subconscious plane populated by elements borrowed from his real-life memories.
The exhibition features paintings that are sensitive to the metropolitan way of life with visuals of flowers, fruits and animals juxtaposed with cityscapes. Bardhan's paintings are layered with meaning at the fulcrum of ethereal beauty and gloom, light and dark, hope and despair, life and death, rooted in an urban dystopia.
Bardhan questions the ability of his patronus to exist in such destructive times to bring back the equilibrium amiss in the world.
Pappu Bardhan (b. 1975 Kolkata, India) did his Bachelors in Visual Arts (Painting) from Rabindra Bharati University, Kolkata in 1999 and post-diploma in Graphics from M.S. University, Vadodara in 2001. His solo exhibitions have been held at Weavers Studio Centre for Arts and at Ganges Art Gallery, Kolkata (2017, 2018). His recent group exhibitions with Anant Art include Telling Tales: A Journey in to Narrative Forms, at Bikaner House, Delhi (2020), India Art Fair, New Delhi (2020) and And trace in leaves and flowers that round me lie.., Shridharani Gallery (2019), with Anant Art. He has also exhibited at Art Centrix Space, New Delhi; Ganges Art Gallery, Kolkata; and Gallery Beyond, Mumbai, in the past. Bardhan has also participated in the National art camp in Lucknow, 2016 and Enigma Art Gallery in Delhi, 2011. The artist has received various awards including 59th National Award for painting, Lalit Kala Akademi [2017], Birla Academy Annual Exhibition in Painting (2007), and A.I.F.A.C.S Annual State Level Exhibition (2002). The artist lives and works in Kolkata.