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Those primal urges
which used to obsess Mohan Samant's paintings earlier seem to
have deserted him. Though man and woman stay in some of his
paintings, his vital emotive source glides over a wider range,
and bring in even a richer harvest.
Mohan Samant, in his farewell show at the Taj Art Gallery, has
displayed ten recent paintings.
Samant's attachment
to earthy life is as strange and powerful as it is aesthetically
revealing in his paintings. He digs into the hard and soft core
of life and emerges with strangely exotic images and portrays
them with uninhibited technique. And the resulting paintings
leave one in a dazed stupor.
Four paintings
(1,4,7, and 10) significantly titled as The angels I met
in this world, they say, would become women in the heaven,
(4) Four priestesses of a green mountain, (7) Once
I played Sarangi and never knew where I was and (10) Strange
birds on a strange tree are his major works. Forced landing
of Adam and Eve, a collage, is in the lighter mood.
No. 7 is a gem
of a painting.
His Strange
birds on a strange tree has an unearthly glow about its
colours, as if there was a dust-storm in heaven.
The Portrait
of a learned bull though slow in revealing like the layers
of consciousness is a powerful image.
Only Replica
of an unknown thought and A poet and a moon ..ers of
consciousness, is a powerful im-.. ..acter.
This is a significant
show and is open till Monday.
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