Artwork Description

Whenever an artist produces a new body of works, one’s first instinct is to hold it up against the earlier ones and ask, “What’s new in this?” Looking back at the subjects and building blocks of Satadru Sovan’s older works, one is familiar with his canvas that examines cyberspace, social networking and cyber-visions of blurred gender – “thumbnail portraits of the virtual lives of the sexually aware, seeking netizen” – as he had described them earlier. Toned bodies, honed faces, urban landscapes airbrushed clean of anything ugly – as perfect a world as that of someone’s profile in cyberspace. The elements that have been carried over from his earlier works are in full narrative force here. However, looking at his new work, one notices the emergence of new leitmotifs and an increased dependence on them to suggest patterns of behavior that the artist finds interesting. An inventory of some of the new motifs includes the kingfisher – that brilliantly plumed bird that waits patiently and then darts underwater for its prey, much like the scrap-hungry netizen. The messages in his new works are as fleeting as the domain they inhabit. The new world has nothing but floating relationships. These relationships need no nest, no house. Even the houses float. Nothing is in one place. People and places flow. Emotions flow. Illusions are now even more illusory. It’s a fascinating world that Satadru Sovan conjures, even a beautiful one – though not a very happy one.