Gallery Sanskriti


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Nantu Behari Das

Born 1977.

Nantu has done MVA in Sculpture from the Rabindra Bharati University, Kolkata. 

In creating the current series, Nantu inadvertently brings to the fore his intrinsic childlike temperament. His children at play are driven from within and therefore, manage to evoke a smile and touch one's heart. He draws a parallel with children and the soft fur they are associated with. Yet, in creating these works of wonder, Nantu juxtaposes the thought of tenderness with a medium as hard as metal, only to create the perfect illusion.
  
His figures compel you to reach out and feel them.  Whether it is a child attempting a somersault or one tackling a ladder, the fur throws out a feeler; and when you actually feel it, it stares you in the face, because of its conflicting revelation. This is the masterstroke of Nantu Bihari Das. 

Nantu Behari's organic sculptures are mostly made out of fibreglass, nails and screws. Quantum physics tells us that apparently solid objects contain vast empty spaces, populated by tiny particles whose individual relationships create the whole, and that a single particle can exist in two separate places during one moment in time.

It is this dichotomy that he expresses by embracing opposites - the tension between humans and nature; the perils of balancing biology and technology; the combination of ancient forms with modern techniques. He further enhances these contradictions by the materials he uses : the form which appears solid and realistic is made using something as quotidian as nails.

Medium and expression are interlinked. One creates the other. His Sculptures grow out of his confrontation with life and reality around him. His works are mostly figurative and expressionist in character. 

This unconventional mixed medium induces an air of irony, sarcasm, melancholy, 
anguish in the expression of his mostly figurative images making them vibrant, 
at once, with an inner force and turmoil of the outer world.
 
The ideal  of Rabindranath Tagore induced in him to  believe that  although  art is generated  from  the  memory  of  past tradition,  its  uniqueness  lies in surpassing the tradition and building up new  norms  through  assimilation of contemporary, local and global value.