Fearless. Disobedient. Rowdy. Bindaas. Playful. Rooted. Real. Sanjay Bhattacharya is a rare artist, forever ready to do a soul-strip and pull the trigger to fire off on his life and times. The maverick with a large and passionate fan following lays it on the line with Monojit Lahiri.

Lights Camera Action!! “Visuals of metaphysical anguish are predictably huge hits with fake/pseudo viewers crowding art exhibitions and art galleries where the rich and famous play starring roles. These creatures are unsung masters of method acting, projecting gravitas accompanied by a piercing gaze, punctuated with (self-conscious) sighs. These Oscar-winning performances are desperate attempts/desire to be perceived and accepted as a true-blue champion of the art-culture fraternity, a planet away from the untutored, illiterate, unwashed hoi polloi who can never be accused of class”

“Most of today's artists, somewhere, seem to have a guilty conscience for participating in society because, in their hearts, many of them know that most of their work is targeted more towards the merchant, not the muse. In these blatantly market-driven times, where nothing is precious and everything is up for sale, where one can convert even Jesus into a Superstar in a best-selling musical, nothing is impossible.”

When I showed these two quotes to SB, offered by two respected, veteran art critics, he - typically - hugged me long and hard and enquired if he could please meet these amazing iconoclasts and take a selfie with them. Weren’t they a tiny part of the insightful, fearless and knowledgeable endangered species? Suitably charged, SB pressed the FLASHBACK button and off we went down memory lane. So here is SB on SB!

EARLY YEARS

I get the feeling that I was born to detest school and academics and vice versa! Everything that it stood for – the discipline, the subjects, curriculum, teachers, exams, uniformity, the pass-obsessed mugging – was against my view of life, which was to be liberated and do it...my way. Obviously, these noble thoughts were neither shared by my school nor parents and basic education was non-negotiable. So, with gritted teeth, I went through school and later college, scraping through with the exact marks required to flee!

To be frank, till then apart from my dislike for academics, and craze for Bollywood films, I really didn’t have a clue about any future or career plans. It was a friend of my father, who possibly, having heard of my allergy to academics, suggested Government Art College. I may have indulged in the occasional sketching but art as a subject or career was nowhere on my horizon. However, it sounded novel. Why not give it a go? I got through the required test and interview and embarked on a journey that was to be life-transforming...

ART COLLEGE YEARS

The course in the Government Art College of Kolkata went off smoothly, the highlight of which was total freedom from the dreaded academics and a peep into a new world, in a non-serious manner. It was in the second year that lightning struck in the form of a Bikash Bhattacharya painting. I was completely mesmerised!

An avid admirer of Rembrandt and Goya, Bikash Sir was a surrealist painter par excellence, depicting the social and political milieu in a startling, dramatic, even theatrical fashion, unmatched. His paintings were like haunting images and his terrain, invariably, his beloved Kolkata.

A loner, roaming and exploring the winding and little-known gullies of North Kolkata, his creativity and imagination inspired his brush to play camera lens and portray scenes that were magically life-like. Along the way, his work also responded to and reflected the political landscape of the city along with other subjects. He humanized the city in his work in a fashion that was relatable.

Focusing on social reality was his calling and he worked hard, long, single-mindedly and meticulously all his life. Known for his mastery in oil, he also worked across various mediums – watercolour, pastel, conte, collage. Photo-realistic depictions were his ace of trumps, something that inspired me to follow that path. I suddenly got very serious and committed. During my second year itself, at an in-class display of students' work, Bikash Babu [who was one of our prized Professors] happened to see some of my work, did something that proved a watershed – he called students from other classes to show them what quality of work was all about! That was a gamechanger. Like him, I did my own discovery of Kolkata, my own version of an artist's impression. I never looked back and emerged from the Art College with flying colours.

Unfortunately, fine arts and market forces, unless you are a big name, don’t click, so I moved to an ad agency as an illustrator to pursue an uncertain future. Soon I left for Delhi to indulge in advertising work since it paid my bills. I joined a very big agency for a while but I hated being tied down to a million controls - clients, bosses - and soon left to do full-time freelance work, which suddenly boomed.

Madly busy and doing quite well, it struck me one day that the artist in me had vanished and the customised, made-to-order, commercial artist had replaced him and this was a real wake-up call! So I slowly restarted my painting, allocating it specific days in the week, trying to evoke the passion, feelings and drive that marked my Art College years.

A chance meeting with hi-profile Aman Nath - an extremely respected and reputed historian, writer, architectural restorer of ruins, Neemrana Fort Palace, but most importantly a solid champion of promising artists – triggered my entry into the big time. Loads of studios and galleries – where I earlier dared not dream of participating - were suddenly open and welcoming! The breakthrough had finally happened. Networking started. A-lister critics and journos moved in. Big names from the government [private and public sector] entered the scene. Sponsorships came into play...suddenly the world felt really good!

ART EXHIBITIONS ARE JOYSCAPES NOT A TEST OF CULTURAL SUPERIORITY OR ONE-UPMANSHIP!

True art is meant to fly, provoke, push the frontlines, dance at the edges of the human imagination, conjure beauty from the most unexpected things, find magical places where most never ever thought of looking, never limiting the trajectory of their flight. Ultimately, art is to be enjoyed, each in his/her own way, interpretative not judgemental.

Unfortunately, in today’s overwhelming, consumerist fake-scape, forever celebrating the price of everything and the value of nothing, the simple, curious, open-minded viewer frequently feels intimidated by the all-knowing attitude of the ever-burgeoning pretentious lot. These are insecure people with deep pockets and hollow knowledge and do the greatest disservice to art. Sometimes the establishment also joins the party and a great time is had by all, powered by today’s deadly Frankenstein – social media! One tends to forget that art is actually our god-gifted ability to create, foster, nurture meaning from those magical images that often function as both storm and shelter...

I THINK I AM A MISFIT IN TODAY’S ART SCENE–A WEIRDO WHO IGNORES LOW-HANGING FRUITS!

When I look back on my life, the scholar who stunned the academic world through his consistency in taking giant leaps in the wrong directions, my early years at the Kolkata Government Art College, my life-transforming connect with Bikash Bhattacharya and his work, my respect and understanding of the amazingly gifted geniuses of that time, unsung and unrecognized, struggling to make a living, yet never complaining and totally committed to guiding their students with passion and purpose, my Kolkata and Delhi advertising work, return to art, bullied by my conscience, my initial struggle, then the Eureka factor and entry into the golden times, thanks to kind, caring patrons and promoters of unknown artists...

I never forget my roots; that my present-day board and lodging in an unbelievably secure and comfortable workspace has come from solid hard work and solid luck; that despite my surreal connect with the high and mighty in the world of business, industry, politics, showbiz, I see to it that my fundas are clear in terms of favours from the powers that are – a common phenomenon amongst the artist community due to closeness and access. I believe once you do that, you enter Faustian territory and there is no return, only compromise. You are a marked man, nudges and winks will always follow you. True, I am in the art market with my patrons but, at a personal level mostly, I prefer to play out my life, my way.

I am not here to conform and take approval of the world. Balancing work and play, I sing, compose and recite poetry, indulge in photography, zoom off to places which my heart points to...after all...what is this life if full of care, we have no time to stand and stare...

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