It is not easy being the son of an artist who has contributed as immensely to modern Indian art as Lalu Prasad Shaw. But at his exhibition, Blowing in the Blues (held at Debovasha’s new gallery recently), Partha Shaw showed that he can definitely hold his own as an artist. While the delicate figure paintings of babus and bibis are what first come to mind when thinking of Lalu Prasad Shaw’s canvases, Partha Shaw goes the other way — his works are abstractionist and devoid of any figurative human presence.
This show, in particular, was underpinned by surreal themes. Vivid shades of blue stood out in stark contrast to the white walls of the gallery. Upon closer look, the canvases shape-shifted from landscapes of Bengal’s patchwork fields to cityscapes with their mosaic of buildings. Cleverly interspersing the all-pervasive sea of ultramarine, cobalt, cerulean and indigo, among other hues of blue, were the othertwo primary colours of red and yellow.
In fact, it was in the skilled use of these contrasts that Partha Shaw excelled. In one striking piece, an ever-darkening chasm of blue gapes between two yellow landmasses. The shades of the gorge deepen in tonality from imperial blue, to navy to almost inky black. In another, the dark red of the sky at dawn hangs like a pall over a city that is still cloaked in the shadows of midnight blue along with yellow patches (picture). An abstract, topographical mountain range against a yellow background was the other work that stood out.
In some of the paintings,however, the paint eludes artistic control: unintentional drip marks dot the canvas, diverting the gaze from the textural elements being depicted. But that is easily overlooked once the eye is immersed in the blues.