Nikhil Biswas — I am like the clown — a misfit in society
Nikhil Biswas, one of the major contemporary artists practicing in India post Independence was a prolific painter. He was on the threshold of International fame when he succumbed to death leaving his journey unfinished.
Nikhil Biswas’ later works, the ones he completed in the last seven years before he breathed his last, were distinctly violent and disturbing as much as it was visionary and apocalyptic. The ambiance he created through his process was a Yeatsian one reiterating the central thought, Things fall apart: the center cannot hold.
He was fueled by the same passion that drove the Italian Renaissance artists. The motifs are often conflicting with the ideals of Classicism, Baroque and Mannerism. He was unique in synthesizing a visible contradictory method of depicting imaginary reality into his signature style which he then complemented with elements taken out of Modern European Masters.
Although he emerged in an era of abstract art practices, particularly of abstract expressionism, he deterred himself from being persuaded by it. His art depicted tendencies of modernism yet it never made him sever his chords with spiritual inspirations for his art. Elements taken out of mythologies he recreated the sense of human drama that moved him deeply. For Nikhil, the theatrics of being divorced from nature became a tragedy in his art which he portrayed masterfully.
The works he created as a matured artists were turbulent. He drew his energy from the epic studies of disasters and he linked that with reference to anatomy of violence.
He was the very image of a tall, dark and furious artist who had while having a serious demeanor never missed the humor of the moment. He was soft spoken person with a gift of words who would charm his audiences into the best of conversations. But his art was something else. Not so charming indeed. It was intense. The contrast between the person and his art was striking.
Once, the sculptor Provash Sen asked Nikhil, “Tell me, why you are so angry?” To which he answered with a following question, “What does my picture remind you of?”
Provash shared that his works reminds him of the storm that he once faced in mid-sea. That’s Nikhil Biswas, a furious misfit, a striking clown as he claimed himself to be. He personified intensity, in being and in art making.
