Downpours of colours by Nilanjan Guha

Nilanjan Guha recently held a three days exhibition titled My Bangalore Days at the Indian Institute of World Culture Art Gallery in Basavanagudi, Bengaluru. The exhibition evinced a good response in terms of visitors from the art field and the general public. Dr G Parameshwar, Home Minister who had come to the adjoining auditorium to release a book by the renowned author Dr Baraguru Ramachandrappa volunteered to have a glimpse of the exhibits. So did Dr CN Manjunath, Director of Jayadeva Institute of Cardiovascular Sciences and Research.

A downpour of colours: Nilanjan Guha presented watercolour paintings made in the last four years while the exhibits pertained to the experiences of his day-to-day life in Bengaluru, Mysuru, Mangaluru and other locations of the state. Along with them he also displayed his plein air works which were painted on the spot. Most of the paintings indicate the nuance and rich diversity of the objects juxtaposed in attractive colours. In a way, you could say they are colourful and enjoyable downpours of multiple colours simultaneously.

An artist by passion: Interestingly and surprisingly Nilanjan Guha is not an artist by profession but by passion and holds a Bachelor of Science in Chemistry, Bachelor of Technology in Polymer Science and Master of Business Administration in Marketing degrees. He is associated with one of the major oil refineries of India, MRPL category 1 Mini-Ratna under the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, GOI as General Manager and resides in Bengaluru with his wife, two kids and a pet.

Changing patterns of the city: Nilanjan Guha says-“I have named the exhibition My Bangalore Days because I wanted to depict various parts of the city and the changing patterns of the different locations over a period of time along with some other places of the state. My intention in doing these paintings, Cityscapes and landscapes is to have a feel of the places to the average viewer. There are about 60-70 of them of Bengaluru. It also covers other beautiful parts of Karnataka. Basically, I am from Kolkata, born and brought up there but moved over to Bengaluru in 2013 after completing my education and have settled here. During my schooling days, I used to do painting as a hobby and restarted painting as my major passion once I started settling in Bengaluru in 2015 but haven’t done any professional courses in fine arts…

…Beauty of various seasons: In these works, I have also tried to give a visual presentation of the mood during different seasons and beautiful landscapes at places like Chikkaballapur and Shravanabelagola. The purpose of this exhibition is also to bring to the notice of the viewers the way Bengaluru has been changing. For instance, the old MG Road before the advent of the Metro is altogether different and also difficult to visualize now. But, I have made an attempt to capture the atmosphere the way it appeared and happened to remain then.

Real feel part of the situation: Nilanjan Guha opines-“My target of painting is to get a real feel part of the location and subject. For instance, many of the paintings here are of the period 2020. So for anyone acquainted with that period, it is easy to have a flashback and also reconnect with the same. In fact, one can have an experience of how it looked like, for example, the KR Market, MG Road situation. Following the Metro MG Road has changed a lot but it is bound to change further by 2050. So, whatever is depicted here is a real-time experience. I want to capture the actual scene we have witnessed and experienced…

…It’s not just a beautiful painting: I just don’t want to do a beautiful painting. By having a glance at the painting one should have reminisced about the place having visited earlier; what is the general feeling of the place, like the dusty, sunny and windy situation prevalent then? I like to do paintings in that format only so that looking at the format you also experience the same atmosphere. This is my objective of painting and I have been pursuing it in watercolour medium I have been regularly doing exhibitions in Bengaluru, and other places. In future also I hope I will come up with new paintings on new subjects in watercolour medium and express my creativity”.

Capture the particular moment: He also clarifies-“I always don’t intend to do the most beautiful painting. While capturing the landscape and cityscape from my inspiration and thought I wish to try to capture that particular moment experienced by me. So I believe that I am representing the particular time and era and I wish to do it in that format only…

…Representing that period of time: The target is to make a painting representing that time, which could also be a clutter or a cavity, but I am actually representing a chaotic situation. So, I want to put that chaos in the painting although it is difficult to put clutter into a subject and I am not afraid of it. And if you ask me how I do, I do it like an organized camp, even if chaos is there it is a little organized, little viewable. So, that little bit of modification and tweaking I do during the time of painting. But, I don’t do enormous changes to the subject to make it beautiful. That’s my time and outlook and brush strokes…

…Every brush stroke should have a meaning: One of my inspirations is Eby N Joseph, an eminent artist from Kerala. He is very candid to profess that when you do a brush stroke, every brush stroke should have a meaning, tell something about the painting by creating some movement, light, and life and help the viewer in reality. It should help the viewer from which side one should see the painting. Maybe it could be the expression of my emotion at the time of painting. Sometimes, we are in different moods and it could be possible that the brush strokes are also coming in different patterns. But, my paintings come up spontaneously unlike thinking in a mechanical way. Ideally, it should happen that way and paintings should come up spontaneously. In fact, the painting is generated by itself while I am merely a facilitator of it. So that is my view of painting and many times I fail to reach my objective. But I keep trying to adopt different approaches so that the objective is reached”.


-Manohar Yadavatti