ByOlivia Sarkar

February 7, 2022 (IANSlife) This solo exhibition featuring artist Shovin Bhattacharjee's artwork created over the last four years is a synthesis of the artist's thematic concerns. Due to the lockdown of the first and second waves of the dreaded COVID 19 pandemic, the artist was forced to postpone his solo show in 2019. The artist, on the other hand, emerges from the shadows to celebrate humanity's ability to overcome adversity and survive in the face of adversity.

Sculptural works and installations typically depict the artist's self-portrait interacting with cuboid structures that serve as metaphors for cities. He is frequently seen balancing out the structures in various compositions, literally "taking the weight of the city" on his shoulders. In one of his Untitled high-relief sculptures, for example, he appears to be lifting up the structures, while in others he is meditating calmly on a sphere while surrounded by the thorny structures.

Shovin's paintings are mostly done on canvas with acrylic and charcoal. Thematically, they are about animal life interacting with urbanity. In his most recent series, he also employs mirror imagery, in which the image of a tiger, leopard, zebra, or civet cat is split into two beings on opposite sides of the canvas, separated by a sprawling city. In another piece, he humorously uses the self as an onlooker, with a tiny image of the self-balanced on a large eyeball (which could also be a metaphor for the world) and holding a pair of binoculars for viewing. Another self-image balances the eyeball from the bottom. All he sees reflected back in his eye, are the rows.

Shovin employs the metaphor of hand-pulled rickshaws, rendered in white to give them a sense of purity, surrounded by fiery red shaped balls that appear almost demonic in works such as Galaxy on Earth. He has created an entire composition based on the plight of the common man, the lowest 'denominator' on society's rung, the rickshaw-puller who was crushed by the weight of deprivation with little or no access to basic facilities.

When it comes to speaking about the oppressed, whether it is humankind, wildlife, or the world at large, it is clear that the artist has his heart in the right place. For he believes that in a post-covid world, we can all be a little more compassionate. "Since COVID, the world has changed. "Nature has taught us that we cannot ignore our surroundings to the point of endangering our lives," the artist says. He also believes that, ironically, the digital and virtual worlds assisted us in surviving the pandemic by keeping us connected to one another and giving us hope for the future.

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