Prasanta Sahu

Combining images and texts, Sahu borrows motifs from the media. The black and white photographic images adopt a documentary style, presenting a fragment of everyday reality, like the one we would probably find in a newspaper or magazine clipping. However, in Sahu's work, this process of citation operates on multiple levels.

The artist is intensely aware of the painterly surface of the canvas. The monochromatic paintings contrast with vividly painted areas and abrasions on the canvas that form interesting texture patterns. However, in his work, Sahu moves away from the modernist obsession with the formal properties of the painted surface. The paintings operate as performative gestures that connect the realms of art and society.

For example, if Sahu draws attention to the materiality of the canvas by deliberately disfiguring its surfaces, the technique also highlights the symbolic importance of the image thus stained. Violence is represented on the pictorial surface, so that art is no longer the terrain of isolated intellectual pleasure, but rather becomes an integral part of our social and political environment, implicated both in its aggression and a place for criticism.

As such, Sahu's painting functions as social commentary. Acutely aware of the conflicts inherent in the urban condition, his works draw ironic, sometimes poignant attention to its underlying brutality and covert hypocrisies. The crowd forms a familiar theme in his canvases. Through the representation of the seething mass of his faces, the artist analyzes common human feelings and the complicated relationship between individual consciousness and collective events.

The artist lives and works in Santiniketan.

BORN

1968 Balasore, Orissa

EDUCATION QUALIFICATIONS

1998-2000 MFA (Painting), Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda

1993-98 BFA (Painting), Kala-Bhavana, Visva-Bharati University, Santiniketan

1986-87 Electrical Engineering Training, Orissa

1983-86 Diploma in Electrical Engineering, Barapada College of Engineering and Technology, Orissa

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2010 Dalis Elephant, Aicon Gallery, London

2010 Irreverent Gen, Crimson- The Art Resource, Bangalore

2009 Nature versus modernity, Indian Fine Arts, Mumbai

2009 Nothing Will Be the Same Again, Hirji Jehangir Gallery, Mumbai

2009 Life is a Stage, Institute of Contemporary Indian Art (ICIA), Mumbai

2008 Art for Freedom, group exhibition and auction in London, jointly organized by Tehelka Art and Aicon Gallery, London

2008 1x1 Art Gallery, Dubai

2008 Image of Self, Kolkata Gallery, Calcutta

2008 A MAZ ING, organized by RPG Enterprises at Jehangir Art Gallery, Mumbai

2007 Embodied, Art and Soul Gallery, Mumbai

2007 Young Guns, Institute of Contemporary Indian Art (ICIA), Mumbai

2007 Flow, Freeze, Focus, Kolkata Gallery, Calcutta

2007 VI(S)VA, a chronicle of difference, exhibition for three people, AICON Art Gallery, New York

2007 From modern to contemporary, Kolkata Gallery

2007 Pastiche, Red Earth Gallery, Vadodara

2007 The Rock Show, Gallery Art Resource Trust, Mumbai

2006 Artist of the Month, online exhibition at Gallery Art Alive, New Delhi

2006 Critical Imperatives: The Ethics of Identity, Nakshatra Art Gallery, Kolkata

2006 Drawing Exhibition: An Act of Art II, Priyasri Art Gallery, Mumbai

2006 The Guild, New York

2006 Art of Young Bengal, Aakriti Gallery, Kolkata

2006 Real-2006, India Habitat Center, organized by Art Matters

2006 Drawing Exhibition, Priyashree Art Gallery, Mumbai

2006 The Essence, Tao Art Gallery, Mumbai

2006 Evam, charity group exhibition, Tao Art Gallery, Mumbai

2006 Art Camp in Hyderabad, organized by Krishna Kriti Art Gallery, Hyderabad

2006 Fusing Culture, Sarjan Art Gallery, Baroda

2005 Palette-II, Palette Art Gallery, New Delhi

2005 Vi - Art Gallery, New Delhi

2005 Contemporary Art Camp, organized by Popular Prakashan, Mumbai at ITC. Sonar Bangla, Kolkata

2005 Bird on a Wire, an online group exhibition organized by The Arts Trust, Mumbai

2005 Change of direction, inaugural group exhibition, Guild Art Gallery, Mumbai

2005 Ways of Seeing, organized by Art Alive Gallery, India Habitat Center, New Delhi

2005 Art for God Sake, organized by Arts Trust, Mumbai at India Habitat Centre, New Delhi

2005 Summer Exhibition, Center International of Modern Art (CIMA) Art Gallery, Kolkata

2005 Versions, Birla Academy of Art and Culture

2005 New Wave in Bengali Art: A Critics' Choice, Akar Prakar Gallery, Kolkata

2005 Allegories, an exhibition for three people, Gallery Threshold, New Delhi

2005 Chair Project, Sarjan Art Gallery, Baroda

2004 Concepts and Ideas, Art Gallery of the Center International of Modern Art (CIMA), Kolkata

2004 The World of Screen Printing, Sarjan Art Gallery, Baroda

2004 Generation I, jointly organized by Saffron Art and Guild Art Gallery at Saffron Art Gallery, Mumbai

2004 A New Media Realism, ABS Bayers Gallery, Baroda

2004 Looking Back and Forward, Sarjan Art Gallery, Baroda

2003 Recent works on paper, Gallery Threshold, New Delhi

2003 Migration, City-Home, organized by Lalit Kala Akademi at Birla Academy of Art and Culture, Kolkata

2003 Transition, Academy of Fine Arts, Calcutta

2002-03 Kala-Bhavana Teachers' Workshop and Exhibition, Nandan Gallery, Santiniketan

2002 RPG Self-Portrait Exhibition, Birla Academy of Art and Culture, Kolkata

2002 From Brahma to Bapu: New Icons and Symbols in Indian Art, India Habitat Center, New Delhi, and later at the art gallery of the Center for International Modern Art (CIMA), Calcutta

2002 New Paradigms, organized by Gallery Threshold at India Habitat Center, New Delhi

2002 Homage to Picasso, Gallery Guild, Mumbai

2002 Selected Young Artists from Santiniketan, organized by Mrs. Renu Modi at Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi

2001 Indian Contemporary Art, Saffronart.com Auction, Mumbai

2001 Nudes, Gallery Guild, Mumbai

2001 Self-portraits of artists, National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA), Mumbai

2000 Stepping 0ut-a Three Man Show, Gallery Guild, Mumbai

1998 Exhibition of Rank Holders, Rashtriya Lalit Kala Kendra, Kolkata

1996 Sara Camp at Santiniketan, organized by Eastern Zonal Cultural Centre, Calcutta in Bhubaneswar, Orissa

SELECTED JOINT EXHIBITIONS

2005 The Sense of Touch, with Heeral Trivedi at Guild Art Gallery, Mumbai

PARTICIPATIONS

2008 Harmony Show, Nehru Centre, Mumbai

2008 Synchrome-IV, jointly organized by Tao Art Gallery and Gallery Akar Prakar, Kolkata at Tao Art Gallery, Mumbai

2008 The Miniature Format Show Part I, Sans Tache Art Gallery, Mumbai

2008 The Miniature Format Show Part III, Sans Tache Art Gallery, Mumbai

2007 12th Hall of Harmony, Nehru Centre, Mumbai

2007 International Art Fair, Rome

2006 Synchrome-III, Akar Prakar Gallery, Calcutta

2005 Synchrome II, Akar Prakar Gallery, Calcutta

2005 10th Harmony Hall, World Trade Center, Mumbai

2002 Seventh Hall of Harmony, Nehru Center, Mumbai

2001 Sixth Harmony Hall, Nehru Centre, Mumbai

2000 Miniature Exhibition-2000, Gallery Sans Tache, Mumbai

2000 43rd National Exhibition, Bangalore, organized by Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi

HONORS AND AWARD

2001 He is awarded the Gold Medal for achieving first position in the Department of Painting at the Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda

2000 Nasreen Mehmodi Trust Award for achieving a first position at the Master of Fine Arts (M.F.A.) level

2000 Awarded for best entry at Rangpur Painting Camp, organized by Camlin India Ltd

1999 Nasreen Mehmodi Scholarship for the best-standing student at the Master of Fine Arts (M.F.A.) level, Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda

1997 Camlin Prize for obtaining the first position at the Bachelor of Fine Arts (B.F.A.) level, Kala-Bhavana, Santiniketan

1996-98 Received a national scholarship from the Ministry of Human Resources and Development, Government of India

1995 Awarded at the 1st Eastern Print Biennale, by the Eastern Zonal Cultural Centre, Calcutta

1993-97 Merit Scholarship, Kala-Bhavana, Visva-Bharati, Santiniketan