Animesh Roy is inspired by the furious passion of Van Gogh, the adventure and grit in Papillon and Robert Louis Stevenson, Messner for being alone with the mountains, the total irreverence and bohemia of Henry Miller, rebellious youths in The Wild One, “What are you rebelling against? What’ve you got?”, the sublime serenity of Tagore and Ray, and courage and greatness of the Mahatma.
Born in one of the most artistic places in Bengal, Krishnagar, famous for its clay sculptures, Roy has been crisscrossing since a child as his parents had transferable jobs. A sense of adventure was instilled in him as a child through treks in the Himalayas — “Walking down to Saat Taal and getting lost on the way back in the darkness.....”
Inspiration comes from adventure, travel, meeting people, visiting villages, monasteries, temples, churches, mosques, and graveyards. He would not be able to work in the confines of a comfortable city studio. Though many of his works do get physically done in a studio — the germs are born on the road, while travelling, soaking in.
Roy has been a rebel and a traveller and his natural skills are completely untrained. His artistic growth did get stunted from four years of exile in the Delhi College of Art, trying to get a meaningless ‘art degree’. He planned for a ‘break’ like Papillon succeeding with two back to back solo shows just out of college in 1992. Earning the ire of the art critics and his art college professors!
Since then Roy has had six solo shows in major Indian cities. |