Mindscape In Cyberspace

Venereal Kittens is a collective, conceptualized and edited by artist-poet Matina L. Stamatakis and dedicated to archiving and preserving innovative works by writers and artists of the 21st century, with a strong preference for experimental, avant-garde,post modern poetry and art. They say very clearly that they are not interested in mainstream writing or art.

They have already featured great artists and writers like, Alexander Jorgensen, Kane X. Faucher, Theoni Tambaki, ek rzepka, Carmen Racovitza, Ted Warnell, John Moore Williams, Angela Genusa, Javier Kronauer, Marco Giovenale, Raymond Farr, Anna Christina, Mauricette Beaussart, Drew Kunz, Nico Vassilakis, Linh Dinh, Robert Chrysler, Catherine M. Bennett, Michelle Detorie, Jukka-Pekka Kervinen, Mark Lamoureux, Bruna Mori, Lina Ramona Vitkauskas, Philip Jenks, Diana Magallon, Jeff Crouch, etc.

Recently they have added my digital paintings and visual poetry to their archive. It feels really nice to be featured on a journal with all those great artists who are shaping the art and literature of 21^st century.

Find the thumbnails of my paintings and vispos that are featured on Venereal Kittens, below:

Entangled

… and Birds and Birds

Comics

Park Street Junction

Watching TV - Emotinally Red

Take a look at my works on Venereal Kittens at following locations:
http://venerealkittens.blogspot.com/2008/10/samit-roy.html
http://venerealkittens.blogspot.com/2008/02/samit-roy-continued.html

This work of mine, titled as ‘jeebanjuddha‘ or ‘Struggle of Life’ has been published on Otoliths, issue 11.

Click here to view this image on Otoliths

Otoliths is a contemporary art and literature journal (or A Magazine of Many E-things, as they say), published quarterly from Rockhampton, Australia and edited by Mark Young. Mark has been writing and publishing poetry for nearly 50 years. He started Otoliths with an intention to come up with a magazine for the art and literary work that ‘can be loosely described as e-things’. Many well-known contemporary poets and artists have been featured on Otoliths. It surely feels good to be there with them.

Digital Illustration
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This is another illustration type I have drawn for the anti-human trafficking project for UNIFEM/Equations. At the visualization stage I tried to come up with a various illustration forms with different emotional quotients. The illustration I have shown in one of my previous post was less emotional and more associated with logical deduction of actual activities and its physical references. Unlike the previous one, the illustration shown above in this post is more attached with emotional suggestions. The key phrases for this illustration were, Compassion, Sympathy and Humanity. Where as for the previous one, the key words I had in my mind while designing, are Plan, Development, Result and Hope. Below is a thumbnail image for the previous illustration, I mentioned.

Previous illustration:

Death of A Mustache
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When I saw the news of Veerappan’s death in a police encounter on the news paper, along with a photo of the deceased brigand, the first thing I noticed was the absence of his great mustache. I was not sure how Veerappan lost his legendary mustache, but I thought, ‘It’s not a death of a man or a sandalwood smuggler or a notorious bandit or the infamous brigand; it is actually a death of a great mustache!’ I might sound funny or weird but I was very much impressed by his mustache, since I have seen his picture on a newspaper when I was in high school!

Within next few days, I came up with this work!

Rampage
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Being an avid gamer I used to spend lots of time on various versions of famous game series GTA – scheming a ‘rampage’, planning ‘bomb blasts’, executing a ‘mall shootout’ or simply ‘riding’ through the city ‘killing gang members’. This image is a kind of extension of my visual memories of those virtual images of deaths and blood and blasts, juxtaposed against our real context – a blasting population, often threatened, disturbed by deaths and murders, mass killings and genocides. It’s all about our time - restless and anxious, like the central character of GTA, standing in the middle of the blood and bodies of ‘wasted gang members’.

The Bengali text on the image says, ‘Our time’, repeatedly.

This work has been featured on the cover of Autumn 2007 issue of International Journal, published by Canadian Institute of International Affair (CIIA, Toronto), currently known as Canadian International Council (CIC). Thanks to CIC and IJ.

Exodus
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Since I was a kid, I have often witnessed hundreds and thousands of homeless, uprooted people, coming out of the dark caves of poverty and hunger, crossing the borders & the fences and walking towards a darker future, with their face glowing with meaningless hope. They know that they might not reach anywhere; still they wish to continue their journey, their Exodus, for a better home, a better world. In this image, I have tried to capture, the endless, meaningless journey of homeless people, crossing borders and checkposts, hiding in the darkness of cloudy nights, and being threatened by their own transitory existence, for years.

Later, this image has been used as a supporting illustration, by Canadian Institute of International Affair (CIIA, Toronto), currently known as Canadian International Council (CIC), for the Autumn 2007 issue of their International Journal, along with few other works of mine. They have also featured my work ‘Rampage’ on the cover of this issue. Thanks to CIC and IJ.

Reconstruction:
I believe, every time viewer sees a painting or any other visual art, he tries to construct/reconstruct his own painting, using the elements available within physical and/or psychological frame of the ‘original’ painting being seen, within his mind. He creates his own image that emerges from the original image; and then starts interacting with this new image within his mindscape. The ‘original’ image becomes secondary here, at this pint, and works only as inspiration; and sometimes as reference. The more he interacts with this newly constructed image, it changes and the visual characteristics of the viewer’s gaze become more and more prominent, replacing the same of the ‘original’ artist.

In this series “Reconstruction: Level 1-3”, I have tried to capture various phases of this mental reconstruction by the viewer. My effort was to depict, how viewer’s perspective can replace, the perspective of the ‘original’ painter.

The so called, ‘original’ work is done by Suman Kalyan Ghosh, an artist and painter from Kolkata. Suman, being my friend for years, keeps sending me letters, photographs and also samples of his recent works. The one I have chosen, is an untitled abstract in pastel that Suman painted in 2005.

Reconstruction: Level 1

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The painting is not framed and pinned up on the soft board beside my table in my cabin. I took a snap of a very small part of the image from an unusual angle. I have consciously included the signature of Suman, at strategic position within the frame, so that it can add value the entire composition as a visual element, too. I have also included the yellow board pin that has been used to put the original painting on the board. I have introduced external elements, shapes and colors and the image already looks like a separate composition.

Reconstruction: Level 2

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This is Level 2 of the “Reconstruction” series. The board pin is now playing more vital role in the composition. The signature of ‘original’ artist became more visually integrated with the entire image and repetition of visual elements has started changing the persona of the image, gradually.

Reconstruction: Level 3

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As the reconstruction goes on, the personality of the image keeps changing. A faint hint of my urban complication starts sipping in into Suman’s subconscious innocence.

[To Be Continued]

Landscape in the Mist
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I have posted my latest artwork on my Digital Art Blogalleria! I named it “Landscape in the Mist: Remembering Angelopoulos”. Though Theo Angelopoulos is one of my favorite European directors, I have never thought about him when I started working on this piece. I just wanted to create a misty landscape with a blue valley and an old, sad, blossoming tree. As I finished the drawing and started thinking about an appropriate title for the same, the first phrase came to mind is ‘Landscape in the Mist’ and immediately I started associating this image with the colors and mood and visuals of the landscapes depicted in Theo’s works, though, probably it does not reflect any similarities with any physical frames of Theo. This work was never inspired by Theo’s movies, but has been associated with them, later. Kind of reverse mechanism, one can say!

The artwork can be seen here »

I cannot restrict myself from quoting a comment from one of the audience of this image, here! Actually, I felt, his comment is also contributing a lot to create the image! I believe, each viewer constructs his own image, using the clues that I have initiated and each of there newly constructed images are unique and different from the main or initiating image created by me. The credit of those new constructions goes to the viewer, who is viewing the image. Whenever someone i looking at my image, I strongly feel that this guy is not looking at the image created by me, but actually creating a new image using mine and looking at the new one. Here is the comment (partly):

“I did not watch the movie, nor do I know much of the director Angelopoulos’ style of work …

… The colour combination and liquid shapes gives me a simile of underwater life (mystic?). The folds may represent faces as well as petals or even unknown hidden stories yet to be discovered. Just as the kids did in “Landscape in the Mist”. 

The entire comment can be read here »

Well, I have never thought about this “underwater life”! But, after reading this comment, I realized that, yes, it does look like an underwater scene, the folds do represent faces as well as petals! These are the constructions of the viewer! I had only thought about a blue valley and an old sad blossoming tree!

I always like these aimless, apparently meaningless, untitled images that I generate while playing with or scribling on my old, dumped or unfinished works on a lazy Sunday morning or lone Saturday nights! I never wanted to achieve something or preach some messages through these works. They are just visual expressions of a particular state of my subconscious mind and they are never conscious constructions with specific goals. I just let the colors and lines flow as they want, resulting these images that talk about themselves, not about me or my consciuos thought process.Most of the cases these images are lost. Only a few are saved and stored and archived in my hard disk.

I have started putting them on my Digital Art Blogalleria. Recently, I have added another aimless, untitled graphics on my Blogalleria. One of these aimless images can be viewed here.