An artist whose works feel and explore his own body

He is an innovative practitioner who leverages technology to juxtapose unconventionally sensuous images in his work, which often depict two personas residing within a single body. The artist’s primary intention is confessional. He lures the viewer into a secluded world where attitudes of homoerotic desire are performed before our gaze.

The domestic space or the lurid hotel room becomes for a brief period of time a stolen habitation.  The underlying theme is, of course, that of sexuality; our preset notions of body, our obsession of it, and the resultant glorification in media and society. The artist does not want to associate his concept with popular tags, such as ubersexual and metrosexual. In fact, he finds such terminology quite redundant and restrictive, at the best.

The shocking and the elegant come together in the subtly – aesthetically – provocative paintings, akin to his complex stories. Captivating and equally curious compositions by Abir karmarkar incorporate an unconventional subject matter that he portrays in his own inimitable style. His self-portraits occupy a psychic or inner space besides their opulent interiors.

Abir Karmakar's self-portraits clearly occupy – besides their opulent interiors – a psychic or inner space. The clothed and naked figures in his paintings are mirror images of each other, whatever the differences in their expressions and postures. He explains, “It’s a performance that I indulge in for projecting my artistic aspirations on myself. I use myself as a medium. It’s a self-image, not a self-portrait.” According to the artist, he simply looks to freeze a moment, a milestone in his curious artistic journey, on the canvas.

The canvases to him are more of an exploration into a fantasy world where he can touch, feel and explore his own body. He invariably employs himself as the model; often painting his own self as an androgynous double - a split image of him - both as a woman and a man.