PATUA 2017.011

Kalam Patua is a contemporary exponent of Kalighat painting, a style that developed in the vicinity of the Kali temple in Kolkata (formerly Calcutta), in the mid nineteenth century, to illustrate the Hindu pantheon and respond to topical social and political events relevant to a local audience. It declined with the rise of photography and the availability of printing presses. Patua often overlaps religious imagery and scenes from contemporary life, reimagining the gods in the everyday. Autobiography shows the artist as a young boy with the uncle and aunt who raised him. In the painting, a young boy (Patua) points to an aeroplane in the distant clouds, while his aunt shields her eyes from the sun. Her posture and draped sari are reminiscent of Ravi Varma’s female figures, while the artist’s uncle is shown with the blue skin of Krishna or Rama.