Anupam Pathak: Counting the megapixels in Fine Art

Anupam Pathak  was born to a Maithili Brahmin family in Bihar. Though the states of Bihar and Jharkhand carry the rich heritage of traditional Madhubani art, his family does not carry the DNA of art in their blood since they are Bramhins. During his childhood itself he got inclined towards art and crafts. He recalls scribing animal figures on the wall with pieces of charcoal as a result of which couple of times he got shouting from his father for disfiguring the walls of the home that were newly whitewashed.

During the 90”s of the last Century POGO channel was broadcasting a show called "MAD" which is an abbreviation of “Music, Art and Dance” and it has nothing to do with lunatics. That television show induced art in the life of Anupam. In fact this fellow never had any formal education in fine art.

On passing out 10th he opted for science and appeared for JEE exams. He got into a Private Engineering College in Odisha which is located at Berhampur in Ganjam district of Odisha.  But he resumed his passion for art only in the 2nd year of his B.Tech i.e. in the year 2016. He was a student of electrical and electronic engineering.

After completing 1st year of engineering during summer break Anupam did few drawings and posted them in his Facebook. Overnight he became a talk in their college Facebook Group.  One of his professors by the name Bhagwati P. Patnaik browsed his Facebook timeline. When college reopened his professor asked Anupam if he can do a concept art with sand on the 20 years journey of their college.

On 17th September 2016 his college celebrated its 20th Anniversary, incidentally it was the Birthday of Anupam as well. In the college auditorium there was a huge gathering of students and many invitees from across Odisha. The Chief Guest  reached and the function began. Anup was supposed to play that sand animation video on stage, but due to some technical glitch it could not be demonstrated. Anup was disheartened as his hard work of more than 20 days went to drain. In the evening while Anup was mourning his mentor B P Patnaik asked him to cheer up. He suggested Anup to upload a demonstration video in YouTube instead. And when Anupam uploaded a  video that went  viral among their college students. Overnight he became a talk among the students of his college. That night itself Anupam set the clear goal of his life to be an artist. 

Initially Anup used to work in all mediums of colours, but finally he settled himself with watercolour. He says when you work with water colour there is no room for errors or omissions. In the art industry and social media Anupam Pathak is known artist for the elaborate figures of sadhus and sanyasis that he draws and paints. 

Basically sadhus or the sages are the ones who have renounced this geophysical world. They heed no attention to the metaphysical world. Likewise neither we the worldly people pay any attention to the circumstances in which they live life. Anupam has able to showcase the pain in the faces of different Sadhus that he paints. 

During December, 2017 he wanted to participate in "Jaipur Art Summit". But to travel from the east coast of India to the farther west he did not have enough money to buy the train tickets. But his passion ruled over all the prevailing circumstances of his life.  This passionate lover of art altogether sold his laptop to one of his batch mates for a mere 10,000 INR. He was scared, because his father will thrash him when get to know about such a heinous crime. Anupam went to Jaipur and participated in that international art event. Neither  earned any money nor earned any trophies, but returned to Odisha with the experience that enriched his art career.

This artist has mastered an almost unknown art form called “fire art”. He burns a candle and as per the needed design he moves the art paper on top of the flame. The white paper absorbs the black carbon of the fire. Afterward he gives needed touch with a knife on the paper and gets the outline. At times he uses watercolour on fire art as well. However he alerts this form of art needs prolonged practice. In case of minor mishandling the paper will burn and will be redundant.

[Anupam Pathak
while demonstrating illusionary art on the trunk of a tree alerting public about the rampant deforestation]

Academically the two streams of education i.e. science and fine art are on the farther end. While the brilliant lot of students opt for science, the lower rungs join art or the humanity stream in college out of compulsion. But art has broken all the barriers. It has nothing to do with the textbooks that are being taught to the students either in the schools, colleges or the Universities. Art is something which evolves in the life of an individual on its own. Few of the world’s greatest scientists were they themselves artists. ​Albert Einstein believed that there is a lot in common between art and science. But since the Renaissance, when polymaths captured the beauty of their discoveries and turned it into art, these two spheres of human knowledge have taken very different paths. Can science and fine art still influence each other, and can art advance science?

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E.Kiran Mohan(The Writer)

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