Spotlight on Pratul Dash

Pratul Dash was born in Burla in 1974, received his BFA in Painting on scholarship from B.K. College of Arts & Crafts in Bhubaneswar, and his MFA in 1998 from the College of Art in New Delhi. His numerous awards include the Industrial Literature Society in Biella, Italy (2005), the Inlaks Scholarship (2004) and the Silver Medal of East Zone Youth Festival, Kalyani, West Bengal (1993).

His work has been exhibited extensively, both in shows throughout India and internationally. In 2008, he exhibited in Dubai at 1 x 1 Art Gallery; in Hong Kong at Visual Art Centre at Kennedy Road; and in Zurich, Switzerland at Avanthay Contemporary. In 2007, his work was shown in London at Royal College of Art and Garnier Contemporary Arts, and in 2006, at Air Gallery, London. He also had two shows with Alliance Francaise. His solo shows include “Proxy Horizon” at Palette Art Gallery in New Delhi (2008) and a show as Unidee in residency at Cittadelarte, Italy (2004).

Dash participated in several painters camps throughout India and one in Switzerland, and he did an international artist residency program in Nepal in 2004. Also in 2004, he did a project site-specific work in Latrrapa, Italy. His work is in both private and corporate collections throughout India, including the Devi Foundation and the National Gallery of Modern Art in New Delhi; Orissa State Museum; and the British Council Division, among others.

Skilled in the art of realism—much like his contemporaries Riyas Komu, Shibu Natesan, and Jagannath Panda—Dash’s huge canvases are steeped in surrealistic images conveying his concern with India’s rush towards Western-style development. “I have nothing against the growth of the country,” he says, “but my concern is with the cost of it.” His belief that it is the “vital role of the artist to uplift the society” is conveyed in his paintings of bare landscapes, concrete mazes, scaffolding, ladders and pipelines, warning of human alienation as well as the destruction of nature. Dash’s paintings transcend the viewer into another world, commenting on the aftermath of self-imposed displacement. Scaffoldings and factories in the distance dominate the surreal yet sublime landscape where the human figure becomes an object, an apparition, as if it doesn’t belong—where melancholy and silence hovers over the horizon.

Since 2000, Pratul became interested in popular imageries and signs of the mass media and has begun to spread his message through the use of Video Art. From his newly acquired camera, he wandered the streets of Delhi. The color, charm, seductiveness, and lure of various objects of daily life attracted his attention.

Originally conceived as multi-screen projections, “Reflections” narrates the scenes of lower class Indian life, where people rummage through piles of garbage—which are juxtaposed with scenes of India under development. We see Dash surrounded by judicial books, posing article 144 as an issue to be addressed, suggesting a hangover from Colonial past. Then we cut to the camera traveling past an empty countryside with only cranes and tractors in the distance—the real-life images so often conveyed in his paintings. In another segment Dash sits on a traffic island in front of Rashtrapati Bhavan, rocking himself with his hands covering his ears—the poignant image of a sensitive man bombarded by the onslaught of civilization. Scenes of a modern department store full of Western-type goods, perhaps unnecessary in his culture even a few short years ago, are contrasted by images of cattle standing in a pile of refuse. In the final scene, birds fly overhead in an empty sky—again an image often found in Dash’s artwork.

“Life of a Double”, a video performance by Dash, take a more comprehensive look at various dimension of the migration issue. In a migrant’s life the actual is where he is now and the virtual, a distant place where he lived and can never cease to be with till his death.
To show dual realities of his life, Dash goes back to his native village Burla, which becomes site of his performance near the edge of Hirkund dam, and secondly uses his bare body which is tormented, alienated at another site, releases all that it has withstood so far. The sacred thread becomes an instrument of torture, constructively guiding performer into emancipation and hope, engaging artist’s body into a subjective act spanning thru isolated time fragment that is driven by an inner need.
One might get a strange relief as the performance unwinds and the distorted image of the face gains the balance. What is left behind are trenches etched into his facial skin, perhaps much like the scars left behind when the tractors and cranes have done their work and left.
In the process of winding and unwinding of ‘Yagnopavitam’, Dash goes thru an extremity of detachment, pursues path of punishment and attains peace in the end. It is kind of come back for a migrant in his native land.