Young artist Ananta Mandal (born in 1983), a final year student of visual art from Govt. College of Art & Craft ( kolkata) has earned a feather in his cap with another success. He is honoured with an award of excellence at San Diego Watercolor Society’s 26th international Exhibition, U.S.A., in special award category. They featured selected painting of Master Watermedia Artist from all over the world. Ananta Mandal’s painting ‘Our Kolkata’ secured fourth place and that’s a great achievement. Each painting is a window to the world of particular artist, a view that can’t be fully articulated in words. Earlier his water colour series on ‘Our Kolkata’ have achieved national as well as international success. His watery stroke comes from many things : the hustle and bustle of modern city life, lush forest, tropical beaches and the many moods of nature. About hundred paintings were exhibited, several times at different places ; like Kolkata, Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore, Pune, California and elsewhere. He has a achieved many national and regional awards, like National Award -2005 at Birla Academy Art & Culture, Kolkata, National Award - 2005 at The Bombay Art Society, Mumbai, National Award - 2006 at Lokmanya Tilak Art Exhibition, Pune and many more. And three international exhibitions that was held in Indonesia where he participated. In an unique move, like before, he organised a solo exhibition at Academy of Fine Arts, Kolkata and received a huge response from viewers. He still aspires to organise many more soloes in near future. Most of his paintings are water, acrylic and oil colour based. The viewers, here, can get to see some superb drawing by the artist. No wonder, his paintbrush has captured the water image of the city roads, countryside ambience and the blue sky merging with the horizon – all of which seems to come alive in his work while their simple charm create a subtle poetry in his paintings. Moreover, the interplay of light and shade has produced a chiaroscuro effect in his cityscape. Line and hues have been wonderfully blended to catch the rhythm of city life in a transparent treatment and getting them translated into artwork.Ananta Mandal is one of the finests of water colourist and has been doing so for quite some time now. His painting in water colour is outstanding, with realistic approach; where life as it really is. He has been romantic artist and his ‘In Road’ , ‘Queen of Kolkata’ , ‘Busy Morning’ , ‘Shadow of the Sky’ and many more images evoke feeling rather than thought. His water colours are bright and sensuous but their atmosphere evoke a strange mysteriousness. They are, in fact, a colouristic trio, played with brown, red and blue, punctuated with yellow. His every watery stroke makes an image as in the case of portrait and landscape. To quote the artist “ Dark shadow of submerged footpath, misty city and beauty of nature sky have impressed me since my childhood which I have captured in different medium like water, oil and acrylic colour with all its glory in simple realistic visual language”. This very feeling echoes in his artistic contribution. Even though he has great talent and potentiality he seems to revolve round almost same topic and composition and applies very limited experimental strokes. And for a budding talent what is inevitable is to break free from any obsession and find avenues to a new world. But in the era of globalization Ananta Mandal can be recognized as a water colourist of national and international status after Shyamal Dutta Roy, Sanjay Bhattachariya and Paresh Maity.The artist who has always been miles away from limelight will be a special feast for the eyes of art lover.
Mithun Pramanik
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