‘The Will to Live’ by Priyaranjan Purkait
Gallery Dotwalk is all set to present Priyaranjan Purkait’s solo exhibition, ‘The Will to Live,’ curated by Sibdas Sengupta. The exhibition’s preview will be held on 28 September 2024 and the artworks will be on view till 28 October 2024. The curatorial walkthrough is scheduled at 5:30 PM. Purkait connects to various personal stories, deep memories, and ancestral practices through his artworks. He reflects upon multiple conditions of living experiences in his native land, Sunderbans. The preview will be accompanied by a seminal publication: ‘The Will to Live,’ edited by Premjish Achari.
‘The Will to Live,’ as the conceptual backdrop, unfolds similar concerns to understand the socio-economic conditions and cultural landscape through the artistic practice of Priyaranjan Purkait. As an idea, ‘The Will to Live,’ gathers the fragmented practices, histories, customs, beliefs, childhood memories and ritualistic practices which have extensively shaped the artistic concerns.
In many ways, the task at hand is to unravel and formulate various angularities to the practice of Priyaranjan Purkait in its totality. The exhibition will feature over 30 artworks including his most recent large-scale paintings and drawings from different timelines between 2016-24. Furthermore, this exhibition also acts as a repository of the ideas, and conceptual and methodological grounds in the development of the works. ‘The Will to Live,’ not only brings forth the background but also connects the practice to the larger histories and sociological structures beyond borders, places, sites and people.
About Priyaranjan Purkait
Born in South 24 Parganas Sundarban in 1984, Priyaranjan Purkait graduated from the Indian College of Art & Draftsmanship, Kolkata, and Rabindra Bharati University, Kolkata. Fabric plays a vital role in his works, acting as a subject and metaphor. Memories of various objects, how their uses altered in time, and the structural transformation of these materials play an essential role in Purkait’s visualisation. The materials used by the fishing community of Sunderban, such as yarns, cotton, fishing nets, etc., remain a significant reference point in his images.
These visualisations foreground the various weaving techniques used by the local community. Purkait’s childhood experience of growing up in these surroundings, his engagement with his father weaving the fishing nets for their livelihood, and the material memories of these human-object relations form the bedrock of his visual imagination. He tries to explore the nuanced values attached to clothing in its proximity to the human body as the witness to various human situations. Priyaranjan Purkait lives and works in Kolkata, West Bengal.
About Sibdas Sengupta
Sibdas Sengupta (b. 1994, Cuttack, Odisha) is a conceptual artist and curator, currently working from Gurugram, Haryana. As a practitioner, Sibdas works with both artistic and curatorial projects around interdisciplinary and research-based contemporary art practices. He has worked with several institutions in managerial and curatorial positions at Bhubaneswar, Gurgaon, and New Delhi.
About Gallery Dotwalk
Headquartered at Delhi NCR, Gallery Dotwalk is an art gallery promoted by Sreejith CN, the Founder-Director, an active presence in the Indian art scene. Dotwalk builds an art space, that pivots on integrity & genuineness, that becomes the hub of future masters, that converses with art enthusiasts around the world utilising the prowess of technology and that makes positive contributions to the art milieu.
Image Courtesy – Gallery Dotwalk
