Untitled 6 Painting

I am Gautam Pal. I was born in Kolkata, the capital of West Bengal, India. Since childhood, I have loved writing poetry, drawing and singing. I completed my graduation in Visual Arts from the Government Art and Craft College, Kolkata in 1990. For some time, I worked as a painter in an advertising agency. In 1998, I was forced to take up the job of Treasurer in a Government (B.Ed) College. At that time, the death of my father deeply affected me and depressed me. A lot of questions started arising in my mind about the birth and death of a person... I read many books from my office library at that time to get answers to my questions, especially books written on Eastern and Western philosophy, and I tried to find answers to many questions of life in that library. At that time, some immoral incidents in that college deeply affected me and from then on, I started creating some protest paintings. All my early paintings developed in the genre of protest art. I named my mission 'The Dark Quest'. The initial purpose of these works of art was to highlight the dark sides of society. Gradually life changed, and my perception also changed. I learned to feel that both light and darkness play an equally important role in life in this world. I started seeing the world from a new perspective. For me, painting is like the poetry of an unknown dream. Just as dreams are not pre-planned, my painting is not pre-planned either. I believe it is a natural phenomenon. An artist spontaneously transforms the flow of time of his earthly life through his own vision with the help of lines and colors. But I realized that our life is uncertain; I do not know what will happen tomorrow. We live an uncertain life. So, in harmony with the uncertain life, it is natural that the painting will always carry the uncertainty of abstraction. I have asked myself many times, in different ways, why should I paint abstractly. Later, I realized that abstract painting done with honesty is the only way to express the original vitality of an artist or to capture the vastness of the infinite. Without betraying my conscience, I tried to find the truth of my uncertain life in my paintings. To me, abstract painting is a translation of the uncertainty of the present life. To me, painting is an uncertain event that happens suddenly. I believe that anything painted with pre-thought is a form of work filled with formal awareness. After that, I named my next painting mission 'Life on Earth'.