The Compulsive Act: Drawings by Jogen Chowdhury, a solo exhibition by Jogen Chowdhury, at Gallery Art Exposure.
Jogen Chowdhury’s drawings are characterized by distinctive lines which function not only to shape the visual forms from life but they also draw out what is supposedly out of sight or buried deep inside the psyche. Lines with various insinuations and width, sharp or soft, squiggly or aggressive, keep moving around the reality seen and felt and burrowed deep into the psychic realm of human existence. Stylistically speaking, the drawings range from a tender naturalism and expressionism at one end to a highly evolved personal idiom imbued with instinctual drive at the other end. They often overlap to form a characteristic style and tendency of their own, eschewing the trap of a singular style or technique and allowing the creative impulse to innovate a variety of modes to express and convey his stream of thoughts.
Small, ordinary and even banal visuals of everyday life and natural surrounding find their ways effortlessly to Jogen Chowdhury’s six decades long practice of intimate drawings, to his quick scribblings and spontaneous imaginations. This passionate engagement manifests itself in numerous drawings made by the artist since the beginning of his journey. Till date he continues to draw ceaselessly and compulsively at any time and at any place. Random yet intimate, these drawings, executed on any piece of paper he could lay his hand on, eventually grew in number following him at every step. The more we look at them we begin to realize that these drawings tend to claim an independent life of their own, assuming an iconic image-presence, irrespective of what they represent.
When: 15th October - 17th December 2022
Where: Gallery Art Exposure, Spaces 1 & 2
54B Mahanirban Road, Kolkata - 700 029;
17A Mahanirban Road, Kolkata- 700 029