Lost in Paradise / Ghost in the Town
Rajib Chowdhury
Socio-political chaos and terror in various forms canopying human lives and the common man’s plea for the peace have greatly influenced visual works of Rajib Chowdhury. Religious and political terrors erupting in micro and macro forms across the globe enter his layered photographic prints and canvases.
While investigating the history of violence and its aftermath, Rajib’s work seeks to understand multiple realities that are stained with drops of fresh blood of innocent people and whose lives have been endangered or lost due to various degrees of violent acts. Enshrouded in an invisible veil, through layers of text and images, Rajib weaves tapestries of violence and terror that history has witnessed and that has become the focal point of human activities today. Skeletal forms of birds, animals and humans in his visual work depict the monstrous form only to show us the doomsday in future.
Rajib draws images from social media, news-clippings and photography practice which inform his thinking and his metaphor-building process. His readings of Agha Sahid Ali, a Kashmiri poet and Srijato Bandyopadhyay, a Bengali poet have lent strong visuals and undertones of society and politics to his pictorial expression. Employing photo-manipulation technique, Rajib overlays photographic images on top of each other to veil them under texts and shrouded imagery that may otherwise provide a journalistic approach. He works in various mediums including oil, acrylic, watercolour, drawing, and printmaking. Most recently, digital art has allowed him to experiment with his visual language and challenge his own work process.
