Nahi Manzoor | Soura Chatterjee

“The pandemic was a catalyst to look at oneself and the fragile existence of our reality. It was a time for a pause for everyone, the space was limited and transient but one continued to create and live amidst the fear of uncertainty. The only way to survive in this uncertain situation was to be alive and exercise the will to live and create. The artist Soura Chatterjee becomes a witness, voyeur, and director who constructs another reality that highlights life through his works. These were multiple situations from a political protest, to a surreal encounter of a crocodile slipping into the urban landscape, a tiger lingers into a dream, fear is in the air but so is love.

The artist was a witness to social shifts of reality around himself, he was a volunteer in a hospital and a caregiver. He carefully constructed a setting to narrate poignant moments from a juxtaposition of characters that played roles in multiple realities. This was viewed as a multi-dimensional theatre set where the characters also included animals and reptiles that add a touch of the surreal in the domestic context amidst the ‘still lifes” of the everyday.

The result was a set of works that unpack a series of vignettes that are from his lived reality and from different lives and moments of others. He has captured moments of intimacy to violence, enacted by the characters the artist represents. The real became an expressionistic theatrical set that referred to the multiple layers of a stage infused with drama. The stage was set and the mise en scene was constructed by a play with dramatic lights that are filtered in planes and become part of the artist’s intent. This is the artists’ representation of a theatre of life, the constructed planes, and urban architectural setups were curated like a set designer. The artist became a director who represents the emotions of life seen in isolation or through windows and doorways. Through the lens of the fragility of the human body and the uncertain pandemic, he asserts life despite all odds. Hope is eternal, and it endures. Life goes on.”

Suresh Jayaram