In the body of work titled Wind through the willow (name of a local plant in China) Arunanshu presents works/leaves from a Tree, like pages of a personal diary, capturing notations, where one image leads to another... Drawing and sketching impressions during his trip to China, he intended a visual and conceptual link...

In the manner of a post-modern novel that highlights an ontological uncertainty, Arunanshu Chowdhurys canvases carry emblems of a lost world, a forbidden city or an imagined locale. ln his work, bizarre juxtapositions of events and objects, of realism and farce, of euphoria and anxiety create new sites that are charged with the very absence of their former meanings. Under its uneven skin, the painting is suspect as it carries within it a sense of 'no closure' - only viable endings perhaps. The story book has taken the form of a puzzle, page after page spilling over some oblique hints and sometimes direct clues. What is obvious is his absolute belief in the collapse of linear narrative, chronology and methodology, replaced by mangled vignettes of existing and surreal environments unevenly scattered on the two dimensional surface.

In his attempt at merging the historic and contemporary by a temporal and spatial convergence, Arunanshu in his art making, pieces together objects and events that belong to cultures and histories that present a knotty sense of time and existence. His artistic temperament is fuelled by the thrills of visual discovery by way of screening old books, maps, graffiti, collecting found objects, discards and fragments from sites that reveal the under layers of composite cultures and their interface with the current physical make¬up of places. He is an avid traveler to both strange and familiar lands and thus there is a deep preoccupation with the problematic, the decadent and the ever-changing nature of Life. Playing the nomad from time to time, Arunanshu has come to realize the impossibility of penetrating cultures, sampling them primarily at the consumer level. His work addresses hybrid encounters, layered histories as well as the accelerated mobility and transplant of objects, people and things in the age of global belonging.

Though Arunanshu essentially trained as a painter enjoyed the attributes of oil painting, the sheer need to accommodate a repository of signs, emblems and fragments motivated Arunanshu to indulge multiple mediums such as charcoal, coloured pencil, water colour and screen printing along with ephemera in the form of discards and found objects, resonating original sites and stories. Embedded by way of mixed media transfers, images within images are fixed pictorially by the movement of a wet dry brush. Heavy pigments, pieces of crochet or mesh create a bloated texture on the pictorial surface. The possibility of reinterpreting recycled material and memorabilia spelt out a compositional strategy for him as he maneuvered the transfer of materials from one context to the other.

It is important for the artist to retrieve simple objects/fragments and source banal images to reinvent new meanings and situations. Advertisements, old printed material, newspapers and personal souvenirs, all helped develop a repertoire of motifs that the artist employed freely In his creative process. For some decades now, mixed media ventures have gained significant presence in contemporary art practice and artists limited by and fatigued with the purity of a single medium have embraced the use of diverse materials in their work celebrating the modern means of collaging and assemblaging. Arunanshu is not an unusual painter if he sculpts or explores diverse materials is true of many from the previous generations who in their formalist preoccupations took up challenge of translating or visualizing their work in newer mediums, though In younger artists, the purposes are more varied.

In Arunanshu, diverse materials are amalgamated for their metaphoric value, their instant messaging potential and relevance to the theme. Besides drawing objects realistically, painting acts as a foil that binds disunited bits and pieces together. The freedom to rediscover and challenge one's practice, flout old rules and invent new ones is what excites this artist who continues to be promiscuous with mediums and aesthetic effects. The painting negotiates citations and formal punctuations that bring about an uneasy resolve. Arriving at a split vision, with parks smoked and blurred and parts crisply amplified, the method and the message come to share the same philosophical premise- of fragmentation, rupture and a precariousness of the unpredictable.

In the body of work titled Wind through the willow (name of a local plant in China) Arunanshu presents works/leaves from a Tree, like pages of a personal diary, capturing notations, where one image leads to another repeatedly echo sentiments of places and people visited. Drawing and sketching impressions during his trip to China, he intended a visual and conceptual link between the multiple frames. Arunanshu memorialized the place in colours of the old and new- Bright colours placed against muddy tints and tea stains that resemble excavated sites. It almost appears as if one is looking at the past through the transparent pigment layer or trickle that comes between us and the spectral image. Beijing consumed by signs of urbanism was of particular interest to him where the indigenous past is increasingly becoming a relic to be experienced only in tourist brochures. “The last couple of months I have been traveling to several parts of the world and no matter how diverse and adverse the cultures of the varied peoples were, the sensibilities and concerns were common,” says Arunanshu. So using architectural lay-outs of destroyed Mughal cities/structures as a backdrop, he chooses to partially render the delicate style of Chinese drawing or stylized river waters, culture specific objects such as paper lanterns, traditional costumes juxtaposed with domestic objects such as clothes iron, shopping bags and steel spoons stamped 'made in India'.

The artist suggests that reading his paintings would be a better option than merely viewing them, for the invisible presences are stronger than the simply visible ones. In Arunanshu there is a desire to reveal but not display- hence the intended fuzziness through hide and seek operations. Incompatible motifs/subjects such as insects and butterflies, musical instruments, knives and spoons, chairs etc. are often placed in absurd connections with reversals of scale to trigger off new relationships. The bricolage ¬ made up of printed and painted images with select text often transforms into a witty ensemble.

Entitled A load to carry, Arunanshu presents us with the exigencies of contemporary reality where survival and security lie trapped in the age old game of power and conquest, proposing the need for both protection and subjugation. The bleeding land speaks of physical abuse and violence while trophies display valor and a deadly desire to destroy in order to conquer. An axe and a gun lean on each other... the wheelcart lies unoccupied and deserted Grenades/bombs with appendages rain on the desolate ground with no humans on site to witness the brutal game of power. greed and possession. Images placed as if amidst visual rubble critique the paradox of modern progress and urban debris. Pride, Seat of Honour, Power to the weaver are compelling in their tongue-in-cheek irreverence„ using colonial imagery extracted from old magazines, loaded with suggestlons of power play, seduction and subjugation through a stylish display of hats, moustache and sexual overtures

Though less casual and more conscious now the deconstruction and reconfiguration of the pictorial surface, it would be interesting to keep, track of Arunanshu's efforts in future at potentializing the subversive energies of his creative process.

Roobina Karode
New Delhi,2008