Tanmoy Samanta

Tanmoy Samanta
Messengers, 2019
Gouache on Nepalese handmade paper 
11 inches x 9.5 inches (each)
Set of 12

Many artists and poets identify themselves with creatures — Tanmoy identifies himself with birds, so the images of birds keep coming back to his works. Our mythologies, fairy tales and songs are full of birds as a metaphor for all immaterial things. He is fascinated about birds and how this simple yet immensely variable creature can beautifully hold the universal dualities such as — familiar and strange, presence and absence, macabre and fantastic, moment and eternity. In these paintings, the form and structure occupy its own space, of solitude and oblivion.
 
The birds in this work titled "Messengers" are floating in an unidentified space. They are anxious and alerted in their posture by a sense of danger brewing and lurking silently in the dark of the night! As one of the most sensitive creatures, are these shadowy birds actually messengers of nature telling us the precariousness of changing environment!​

Location: Gallery MMB, Goethe-Institut / Max Mueller Bhavan Mumbai

 

About the artist 

Tanmoy Samanta (b. 1973) began his artistic journey at the Kala Bhavan in Santiniketan, West Bengal, followed by training at the Kanoria Arts Centre, Ahmedabad. His career has seen a number of solo exhibitions including three with the New Delhi based Gallery Espace and one at Anant Art Gallery, Kolkata. Samanta’s show at TARQ in 2014, titled ‘The Shadow Trapper’s Almanac’, curated by Ranjit Hoskote, marked his first solo exhibition in Mumbai. ‘The Shape of Home’ will be his third solo show with TARQ.

Over the years, Samanta has been a part of group shows across India and abroad. Recently, he was part of a group exhibition, Known Unknown, organized by the Raza Foundation, in collaboration with Vadhera Art Gallery, 2020. Besides finding a presence in numerous art fairs such as Art Dubai, Dhaka Art Summit, Art Chennai and India Art Fair, his works are a part of several prestigious public art projects such as the installation at the Hyatt Regency, Delhi (2016), a site specific collaborative project at IIM Ahmedabad (2016), T-2 Liminus, Mumbai International Airport (2013) and Bee-Hive at the Hyatt Regency, Chennai (2011) – both curated by Rajiv Sethi. In 2002, Samanta artistic practice was recognized and celebrated with an award from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, New York, USA.

He lives and works in between New Delhi and Santiniketan.