My main subject in this exhibition is printmaking. This medium has its roots in Bengal and has come a long way in contemporary times. We are aware of the fact that printmaking as a regular art practice was established in Kolkata with the setup of the graphics studio of the Society of Contemporary Artists Group in 1960. The seeds were planted by a group of artists from Bengal: Arun Bose, Somenath Hore, Suhas Roy, Sanat Kar, and Shyamal Dutta Ray, to name a few.

Individually, Suhas Roy has been immensely engaged with this procedure personally throughout his working life. People are well accustomed to his name as a major painter of Bengal, and rightly so, but as a print maker, we feel the art lovers and art collectors barely have good knowledge regarding this fact. Many have hardly known him as a printmaker and have very rarely had opportunities to experience his work. We know about his sudden demise very recently, which has created a huge void in the art fraternity to fill.

I deeply aspire to showcase some of his graphic works in this exhibition. The plan is to exhibit the art works of three individual printmakers from three generations and time periods. We would start with Suhas Roy, one of the pioneers who started off in the SCA studio in the 1960s. Then, maintaining the timeline from the 1990’s onwards amongst the practicing printmakers in Kolkata, I would display Atin Basak’s works, and coming to contemporary times, the works of Srikanta Paul, who is a printmaker and has been seriously involved with this procedure in recent times, would be showcased.

A.M., as an art space, would like to establish itself as an art space hosting multi-disciplinary activities related to art. As per the concept and credo of mine and my studio space, I would not want this show to be a conventional affair. I conceive of this show as a printmaking project rather than an exhibition, and according to this concept, I would also be displaying different printmaking tools, other materials, and external objects that the participating artists use during their work affairs. I plan to create an intimate studio ambience, comprising the artworks, installations, and video related to this project as well. The project aims to showcase the method of printmaking and take it to the masses, who will have a wholesome experience regarding the holistic procedure of printmaking. We hope this project will help popularise this very old and important art-practicing method among art lovers, which we think would be valuable for the society of art as a whole.

Ayan Mukherjee
Curator