Gallerie Nvya presents a show in honour of the birth centenary of Somnath Hore titled Unhealing Wound.
The show is a tribute to artist Somnath Hore’s extraordinarily empathetic and emotional nature, witness to the Second World War, the Bengal famine, and the ensuing suffering, and made this pain the mainstay of his art. “Everything around me”, he said, “seemed to be intimations of only one subject matter – the helpless, the rejected, the hungry… a wound that would not heal.” In the early 1970s, the artist started making white-on-white paper pulp prints from clay or wax sheets which he cut and slashed minimally. These were “wounds”, he said and se saw them everywhere: “The ruts left on the road by wheels, the cut from the axe on the side of the tree, the injuries on the human body left by weapons.” With Wounds, his work evolved into a most direct experience of art. Instead of depicting human or animal figures as objects of suffering he was, as if, making himself and us participate in the suffering itself. He brought us face to face with the wound. After that, Somnath Hore described whatever he worked on, including his small bronze sculptures, as Wounds.
Find out more on the Gallerie Nvya website.