Facets of Probir Gupta’s intense art practice

In his suite of works showcased at ‘The Empire Strikes Back’, a group show of contemporary Indian art on view at the World-renowned Saatchi Gallery, all the intriguing facets of Probir Gupta’s practice come to the fore.

In ‘Anxiety of the Unfamiliar’, his figures seem to have transformed into beetles laid out as dreadful corpses. Man, machine and insect intertwine into incomprehensible forms. A series of miniature negative portraits of men beneath these grotesque figures are at the epicenter of significant episodes in India’s politically charged history.

‘Anxiety of Unfamiliar I’ (Acrylic and iron oxide on canvas) recalls Franz Kafka’s ‘The Metamorphosis’. The unsuspecting protagonist of the short story finds himself transformed into an insect. Two robotic insects are painted side-by-side in an outline of bright yellow and muddy brown. Transparent in their appearance the larger one is made of a multitude of intricate limbs rooted to a robotic spine, which forms the anatomic shell. The shell holds this dissected insect together. Beside it is a smaller insect. Falling from the top of the canvas, it has within it an animation of acrylic figures at the crest of a mountain under a pitched flagpole wrestling with an unsettled, hazy sky.

His portrait of the Bene Israel Family is a thoroughly engaging examination of the past. Under British rule, many of the Bene Israeli community rose to prominence and thrived on the new opportunities sanctioned by the British. It appears to be far from a resolved painting, as the figures soften into the canvas and seem to merge into the background. It displays the artist’s examination of identity and social history.

In ‘This Is Not A Pipe’ (Acrylic and oxides on canvas with stretched vinyl), Probir Gupta references René Magritte. The space lets open endless possibilities. Multi-layered forms rest on top of one other. For the artist, the subject of multiple narratives lies in a series of beaming portraits, floating pipes, a map of India broken up into its regional details and a naked figure contorted in a well-intentioned pose.