Important Notice

Born in the village of Kalikapur in Orissa, Sudhanshu Sutar’s outlook on life and art is coloured by both his rural upbringing, and by the many surprising aspects of city life that he discovered on moving to New Delhi in the mid 1990s. Sutar’s images thus marry an almost naïve village idealism with the harsh realities of surviving a metropolis, consequently reflecting the struggles, concerns and disenchantment of India’s large rural communities... Born in the village of Kalikapur in Orissa, Sudhanshu Sutar’s outlook on life and art is coloured by both his rural upbringing, and by the many surprising aspects of city life that he discovered on moving to New Delhi in the mid 1990s. Sutar’s images thus marry an almost naïve village idealism with the harsh realities of surviving a metropolis, consequently reflecting the struggles, concerns and disenchantment of India’s large rural communities faced with ‘development’ and urbanization.

The present set of fifteen mixed media works magnifies Sutar’s personal tussle between the real and the ideal, elevating it to a national level. Here, the artist uses clever juxtapositions and ironically paired images to spotlight the schism separating contemporary India from the country that Gandhi and its other freedom fighters imagined sixty years ago. Similarly, Sutar highlights the present national division between the cosmopolitan, developing ‘India’ of the big cities and the economically and socially depressed ‘Bharat’ that is the rest of the country. The image of Gandhi precariously seesawing between ‘India’ and ‘Bharat’ atop the Ashoka pillar neatly sums up the socioeconomic and political divides that inform the rest of these works, and the same image of the leader perched on the open blades of a scissor speaks of the violence they spawn.

Asking whether India’s national emblems truly represent the entire nation, and why the constitution’s promises of freedom have only been selectively applied, Sutar contrasts images of political violence and bonded labourers with the beatific images of Gandhi that adorn every Indian banknote, suggesting perhaps that his martyrdom was in vain. Critical of the various ways in which politicians have subverted peace and democracy in the country, the artist mocks their bureaucratic apparatus and the crocodile tears they shed on the campaign trail at the suffering of their constituents.

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