"A scarred tree, a road gouged by a truck tyre, a man knifed for no rational reason. The burin mercilessly cuts the surface of a woodblock, acid ferociously attacks the zinc or copper plate, these exercises continue without any premeditated design. In the end, an icon of wounds emerges. This icon represents the hapless, deserted, starved, and tortured."
Crayon Art Gallery displays "Somnath Hore", a solo show featuring works from his White on White (Wounds) series, etchings and sketches.
Hore was born in Chittagong in 1921, and the work in this exhibition echoes memories of his adolescence and his experiences as a witness of the Bengal famine.
In White on White (Wounds), Hore uses paper pulp prints, an organic material similar to the human body-and scars it with tools and his own hands. Similar to the man-made famine, the wounds inflicted on this paper pulp are also man-made.
In his etchings and sketches, Hore focuses on bodies, producing repetitions and multiples of the same image.
This emphasises the importance of the image in his mind and how it stuck with him over the years.
The curation is in dialogue with the works- as the viewer is sandwiched between the wounds while walking past the sketches and etchings of the body.
Unpolished aluminium used as backings for the label & the unfinished concrete on the walls work in harmony with these artworks.
These evocative & incredibly moving artworks urge you to view them in person and share a moment with them.
