The Barpali Days

Raghunath Sahoo : A Duet of Art and Music

The common man who got no knowledge of art, are often the victims of hallucination by glamorous paintings that were made with vibrant colours, let how irrelevant the subject is. The career of most of the artists abruptly ends while creating the generic images of meadows, forests, waterfalls or the sunsets. But in current scenario here in Odisha we got an artist of very high order whose works make him stand apart from the other contemporary artists of India. It is Raghunath Sahoo of Bhubaneswar who able to bring a ripple among the art aficionados. His art works are raw in nature. The colours that he chooses may be dark in tan, but they reflect the true scenario of rural life of Odisha. The subjects that he chooses to paint are weird and uncanny.

Have a glimpse on the given art. It’s the painting of a wooden door of a dilapidated house that seem to be more than a Century old. But the thing that most likely to grab the attention of any viewer is the presence of a cockroach at the bottom. On day to day life such small objects and things appears in our life, but our eyes ignores them as they does not appease us. But it is Raghu who give space to such insignificant things in his canvases.

Raghunath sketches with finer detail the utensils or objects that are used in any households of rural Odisha. It is worth to have a glimpse of the bamboo baskets in few of his canvases. One should appraise the above painting for the accuracy of geometrical proportion of the shadow of the basket. In fact Raghu is an artist who have mastered the technique of using sun light and shadow in most of his art works. He could focus on the elements that have been ignored by our common eyes, due to their wretched condition. For example the wheel of a abandoned cycle. When you walk through the Unit-VIII of Bhubaneswar the neighbourhood where this artist resides, you would have a glimpse of the rural life of Odisha. Many houses are roof topped with either terracotta tiles (Khapar) or paddy straws(nadda chappar). Instead of compound walls each of these houses are fenced with mats made of bamboo. And our artist Raghu has been immensely influenced by this rustic village atmosphere of Odisha, to transpire it in to his canvases.

Unlike other artists he does not go to any locations to do study paintings. He just observes the surrounding that he lives and trace out the subjects to make art works. In the year 2011 in a magazine he saw the photograph of a painting done by Atanas

Matsoureff titled “Meeting”. He was greatly inspired towards this painting of a bag. Though it was a water colour art, but looks as if an oil painting. For years Raghu remain clueless how this painting of a bag has been done. But years later when he got an internet connection than only he able to know the technique that has been used by this great Italian artist. Use of internet played a major role in his art career. Now he solely depends upon the Facebook to sell his canvasses. In an average he sells one painting a month to the visitors of his Facebook.

He works on chiracharita paramparika art style. It is worth watching few of his paintings made on the temple architectures of Odisha. Notably the Muktewar temple and Jagganth temple are worth appraising. Since medieval period there has been a massive growth in science and technology, but seldom we could ever be able to erect yet another Konark, Lingaraj, Mukteswar or Jagganath temple. Whereas this Oriya artist is building the architectural wonders of medieval Odisha on his canvases.

But not an iota of his canvases has been endowed with any titles. He says, “What is the meaning of drawing an image of a mango and tagging it with the name ‘A Mango’. Art is something that is visible to bare eyes. As an artist my job is to observe the surrounding and to create the art, whereas it is the responsibility of you the art connoisseur to savour it with your own eyes. Let the onlooker interpret my art the way he or she understands it.

During his study of Bachelor of Fine Arts at Bibhuti Kanoongo Art and Craft College, Bhubaneswar their Principal use to tell the students when so ever you sit to do watercolour paintings, always hold a fresh cotton cloth along with you. It is because while painting, in case you commit an error you can immediately rectify it by wiping the colour with the dry cotton. Why ? Because in watercolour paintings, an error can never be rectified. Whereas with acrylic or oil paints an error can be modified for any number of times until achieving the perfection. He says doing art with water colour is something like sculpting a rock. In case you carve the rock an extra millimetre, than you won’t be able to rectify the error and the rock would be redundant.

During his college days he was possessing an IMFA calendar titled “Odisha ra Baraputra” carrying paintings of twelve eminent personalities of Odisha like Gopabandhu Das, Fakir Mohan Senapati, Madhusudan Dash, Gangadhar Meher and so on. These paintings were done by Muralidhar Tali, a revered artist of Sambalpur. But our budding artist on the making never able to understand how the special effects were made on those paintings. But when he saw the original canvas of paintings done by Muralidhar Talli at the Regional Branch office of Rastriya Lalitkala Academy than he realised how the application of water colour on a canvas can be altered by the mere touch of cotton. And that was a great turning point in his art career. Our artist Raghu was much moved by watching a few of the paintings of this art series. On viewing a couple of paintings he left the venue and rushed home in a state of trench.

Here is a painting of Raghu showcasing the scenario of a kitchen in any household of Odisha.

With the fingers that he holds a paint brush, that apart he could fiddle with the strings of a guitar or the tabs of a synthesizer. He could blow a flute to the tune of Hindusthani music. Raghu simultaneously posses the skills in both the disciplines, be it art or music. Whereas we are yet to acknowledge this Oriya who is a maestro in multi disciplines of art.
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