Jatin Das returns with a solo show of his recent works

A few furious brushstrokes and firm dabs of paint make human figures, their faces crinkled in agony or apathy, their primal postures even more expressive. They are Jatin Das’s people. After nine long years, Das is coming up with a solo exhibition of his new works in Delhi. And this time the strokes are fewer and fluid lines seem to unexpectedly come together to form contours. But the people seem alive, still, as though he hastily caught them in action.

The 67-year-old artist says the show was not planned. “I never paint for an exhibition. The gallery was free and a month ago someone suggested that I put up a show since there hasn’t been one in Delhi for quite a few years. I agreed, came to the studio and put together a collection from what I had painted over the past few years,” he says. On the walls, a poster carries a picture of Digambar, an oil on canvas. In the open folds of a cloth that has gathered its colours from the sky, a figure stands, an abstract halo around him, flanked by ecru-coloured man and woman. The earthy shades hint at the title of the exhibition “Earth Bodies”.

When Das put up a solo “Body and Line” in Mumbai in 2007, the police asked him to put up a notice that it was not open to those under 18 years. “Such a thing never happened 20-30 years back. It is a recent phenomenon. But I don’t dress my art,” says Das, glancing at the bare three-headed figure Gyani.

... contd.