BySiddhi Jain

December 25, 2019 (IANSlife) For Kolkata-based artist Pintu Sikder, this age of industrialisation advancing on nature, is the muse through which his metal sculptures tell an artistic tale.

In his latest body of work exhibited the capital’s Triveni Kala Sangam, the young artist comments on how “every thing of our daily necessities these days is an industrial product”. Titled ‘Shelter’, the solo show runs from December 24-January 10.

Using textured sheets of brass nuts to show surfaces impacted by modernisation, Sikder has explored the tussle between cultivation and industrialisation on limited land resources.

“Growing deforestation and industrialization and urbanization etc on fertile land are alarmingly lessening the area of cultivable land. Indiscriminate use of chemicals hampers the fertility of the land left. Days are not far off when land will refuse to produce. We shall have then to depend absolutely on industry for food to eat,” says Sikder.

Reflecting this thought in his creations, the artist imagines natural elements -- vegetables, parts of the human body, animals -- in his medium of brass nut that depicts industry.

His process? He first makes the form in clay, followed by a moulding of Plaster of Paris (PoP) over it. Then he detaches the mould and arrange the nuts at the inside wall of the mould and joins them by means of gas welding.

The exhibition is free to attend.

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(Siddhi Jain can be contacted at siddhi.j@ians.in)