The Mystique of the Epic is an exhibition that the Kolkata Centre for Creativity created featuring works by Shuvaprasanna. One of the two main Sanskrit epics of ancient India, the Mahabharata, will be honored in this show.

The inauguration of the exhibition was organized at Kolkata Centre for Creativity (KCC) in the presence of Shuvaprasanna Bhattacharjee (Artist & Chairman of the State Heritage Committee of WB), Bratya Basu (Playwright, Actor & Education Minister of West Bengal), Pabitra Sarkar (Writer, Literary Critic & Scholar), and Reena Dewan, Director of Kolkata Centre for Creativity.

The Mahabharata is India’s oldest, longest, and finest epic. It tells tales of eternal social life and a fantastical, mystical, yet contemporary, struggle between gods and demons. Numerous creative minds, academics, and researchers have been occupied for years studying the mystique of this tale. Although it was initially penned by Vyasa Deva, many creative minds were affected by it and provided their own interpretations, including Kalidasa, Goethe, Rabindranath Tagore, and Peter Brook. Even Satyajit Ray had thought about bringing it to life on film. Similarly, Shuvaprasanna, one of the most prominent contemporary artists of Bengal, was inspired by the appeal and mystique of this epoch-making creation, the Mahabharata, and used it as the basis for the paintings that make up the exhibition.

Shuvaprasanna sees in his mind’s eye the abstract representations of all these important occasions, the concrete amalgamation of all individuals and locations, times, and realms. As figures of epic proportions take center stage against Shuvaprasanna’s intriguing settings, certain perpetuity and spatial expansion occur. The characters are depicted at the nexus of timeless and dimensional ambiguity; nonetheless, they also retain a creative vitality that enables viewers to rethink and reinterpret them in light of modern reality.

The show will be on display on the 4th Floor (Physical Space) at KCC from August 5 through August 30, 2022, from 11 am to 6 pm. The display will be accessible to everyone.

Priyanka Dutta