The pandemic has been so hard on everyone. My prayers for those who are affected. It’s spreading in the whole world! California was one of the earliest states to close down. Palo Alto is more or less closed since March, which was right after my show ended. Last date of my show was Feb 29. What a leap year! We are only going out for solitary walks to the nearby parks with masks in place. I have recently left Gallery House. In my home studio still struggling with Rain #2. I do not know when I will find a satisfactory way.

Meanwhile the show had great response. I had two large paintings from the Foyer series in the show (Foyer #1 and Foyer #2).

In Foyer 1, I combined Minimalism, Cave Art, Gestural Art, Printmaking (Collagraph Monoprint), and Block-printmaking. Fun tip is that I was inspired for this wall-paper print by Picasso’s Glass of Absinthe sculptures’ sugar-confetti blue and red dots. I love those six sculptures by Picasso. The floor is the continued exploration of the techniques that I started doing in this series that was inspired by Cy Twombly’s gestural work. It let’s the viewers reflect on how the dwellers of the space use the space and go about their daily lives.

In Foyer 2 (photo above), I combined Minimalism, Cave art, Color field, Printmaking (Collagraph Monoprint), and Block-printmaking. Fun tip is that the walls are inspired by the damp walls of the monsoon rain that water-stains the walls of every house in Kolkata withstanding this amount of incessant downpour of super-heavy rain that results in knee-length water at quite a few localities. It takes hours, and sometimes days, for this water to drain out. Rainy season lasts two months (July-August) in Kolkata. The monsoon season is fun in a way. After all the thinking that I am doing for the rain series – doing these walls gave me ample pleasure of depicting rainy-season damp concrete walls.

I did the Collagraph Monoprint works pasted on each of the two Foyer pieces, during the summer of 2019. Used a press for it. I loved the use of printmaking techniques in this way in paintings.

Image on top:

Mitun, Foyer #2, Acrylic and paper on canvas, 80″x30″, 2020.

So that’s the story behind inspirations behind Foyer #1 and #2. Take care everyone and may you and your family stay safe and healthy.