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Sunil Das is one of the giants of India 's contemporary art scene. The many dimensions of his talent are best viewed through the eyes and minds of eminent contemporaries and critics, and of those who have known him well.
I for one, have always been impressed by Sunil's adventurous attitude towards his work, which has always prompted him to try out new ideas, new techniques and new styles
His most remarkable works revolve around the theme of a) man-woman relationships, b) woman in her sexual empowerment, and c) in her loneliness
I have always been haunted by the mysterious looking women who frequently appear on Sunil's canvases. Their eyes shine like two gems from the infinite darkness of their sockets. Their faces painted in white against a white background, framed by dark flowing hair and their bodies endowed with all the attributes of the female figure
leave an indelible impression upon (the viewer's) mind. Paritosh Sen.
Even today his horse compositions are spectacular, the result of a painstaking commitment since his student days, when he drew more than 5000 mood pictures of these magnificent animals giving his canvases a sense of speed and movement that had a staggering effect. It went on to fetch him a National Award when he was only a third year student at Art College . Swapan Mullick
As an avant garde painter he is not afraid to experiment: I use any material that appeals to me, thread, lac, gauze, vegetable dyes and burnt plastic'
by his choice and arrangement of visual images and materials the artist offers a way of ordering the flux of experience
the best art floats an atmosphere of infinite suggestion
Sunil Das' large canvases, with their stunning graphics, exquisite color, and even the empty spaces, can hit the viewer between the eyes
His art is Yeats' art of the whole man
blood, imagination, intellect running together
the fury and the mire of human veins, the foul rag and bone shop and man's blood sodden heart"
Nina De
It is perhaps the grandeur of his vision that transfigures every image that he creates, whether figurative or abstract
it is this grandeur that created the cult of his horse studies
(it) is not something that only permeates his vibrant studies of bulls and horses, it also strikes one in his drawings of refugees at Sealdah Station, and lights the eyes of the 0' and abused women prostitutes whose humanity humbles one. Indeed his drawings are not easy to emulate. They have a profound authenticity in both time and feeling. He explains this, I give you new eyes, the eyes with which you can see the new aspect of time'
(but) adds another rider, I give you new eyes, the eyes with which you can see yourself.' And you suddenly awaken to the fact that the new aspect of time is yourself. Every moment you are growing. Every moment you are changing. The you' of yesterday is not the you' of today; but you are not some rootless flotsam. You are part of that great entity: humanity. And its whole history belongs to you visually through his drawings.
He is not on a quest to ferret out time from dredged out memories. His past serves to define the future but not limit it. This can be seen in the way he threads his manner from the representational a horse, a bull, a face, an eye, a hand, a beak, a claw to the twilight zone of signs, and then on to the liberty of strokes, blots and smudges that are cathartic.
Suneet Chopra
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