Sanjay Bhattacharya
For Sanjay Bhattacharya, school was the most boring thing on earth. He was clearly not interested in books or studies. After Sanjay finished school, he decided he wanted to have nothing more to do with books. He went to the Government College of Arts & Crafts, Kolkotta and graduated in 1982 in fine arts.
Sanjay’s first inspiration was the Phantom. Yes, the phantom of those famous Phantom comics. “I used to draw Phantom everywhere, on the walls, on the doors,” he says. But Sanjay—- one of the most gifted students of realist painter Bikash Bhattacharya — has moved quite far from the realms of fantasy. He practices realism as a genre of art. “My genre of art had to compete with the camera, which copies reality better than the canvas. So we have had to find ways to blend the inner and outer realities, or maybe confront one to another,” he adds.
Sanjay’s figurative images are quite close to those found in the works of the Dutch realist painters or the French 18th century painters. Either oil paintings or watercolours, what has really inspired most of Sanjay’s works are the inner and outer realities evoked by architectural elements.
A lot of his paintings are of the lower middle class families, who are not really heartbreakingly poor, but almost on the edge.
Along with homes and families, Sanjay’s work consists of realistic portraiture. Like the exhibition he did on late Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi’s portraits. There are no larger than life images here. The interiors against which he has painted Gandhi are untelling and cryptic behind their dark brown layers.
Besides homes and portraits, Sanjay’s paintings are all about Calcutta. His total involvement with the streets of Calcutta comes through on his canvas.
