Iram Art is presenting a solo booth of critically acclaimed Indian artist Narayan Chandra Sinha at Volta Basel 2022. Hailing from Nalhati, Birbhum, Narayan Sinha has grown up in what he considers to be a male dominated environment. From his childhood he found himself finding solace amidst nature beyond the chaotic, mundane human life. A seven year old Narayan eagerly waited all year round to learn about colour palettes from calendars received during Poila Boishakh. He has grown up to be a stern believer that despite being blessed with creativity or not, an individual should practice cultivating sensitivity towards his surroundings. For the past 24 years Sinha has been on a journey of finding his own sense of aesthetic which finally culminated into his solo sculpture exhibition “Firelight” in 2021. Firelight explores the raw and intense emotions and tries to pin down the presence of opposing components, which coexist together in the form of basic elemental units. It deconstructs the societal filters and experience emotions and feelings for what they turn out to be more than often, full of layers, contradictory and boundless. His first solo painting exhibition after he moved to Mumbai was at Nariman Point. It was immensely successful with most of his paintings being sold off by the first day itself. However, he still felt hollow. It took him 23 years to make way to Firelight which unleashed the caged Narayan in him. The installation project at 12, Queen’s Park, Kolkata has not only kept Sinha floating through the dark times but also helped him connect over failures instead of stories of his success. Narayan has held over 20 solo shows of his works since 2000 all over the country in many established art shows. Some of them include; ‘Birla Academy of Art & Culture, Kolkata in 2008; ’The Address’, Kolkata in 2008; ’Sonar Bangla’, Kolkata in 2007; ‘Gufa Art Gallery, Ahmedabad in 2006; ’Jahangir Art Gallery’, Mumbai in 2005; ’Academy of Fine Arts, Kolkata in 2005 and quite a few editions of INDIA ART FAIR in association with some of the most well known galleries and art foundations of the country. All of this culminated in his most well known series ‘Debi’ in 2011 which caught the attention of the entire nation because of Sinha’s sublime reinterpretation of spirituality and ritualism through the medium of metals. Growing up in a rural environment made him closer to nature. All of his works are dedications to the basic components of what he found himself around. Raw elements keep on appearing in his works because of this very reason. Having spent a lot of time around the automobile factory adjacent to his home gave him visions of reimagining life through mechanical mediums. This fine line joining life to inanimate objects keeps on inspiring him to see beyond stereotypical meanings and explore what it is to be present as a being and experience life through different lenses at this point of time.
