Sunirmal Maiti, born in 1959 in the district of Midnapur in West Bengal, completed his BFA from Kala Bhavana (Santiniketan) in 1982. He went ahead to pursue his MFA from MSU (Baroda) the same year. Following a hiatus from the art world in the 1990s, Sunirmal returned as a full-time painter in 2006, settling in Hyderabad. His first solo show was held at Lakshana Art Gallery in 2007. Receiving much acclaim for his artworks, Sunirmal then moved to Santiniketan in 2008, in pursuit of a holistic space immersed in nature, far from the humdrum of noisy city life. Since then, the artist has participated in numerous group as well as solo shows, convened and organized various projects, and has also been a guest lecturer in printmaking.
Mythology and mysticism have been subjects of my artistic interest since 2004. We live in a world that is rapidly transforming. Globalization and the demand for advertising have made sure that we are saturated with images and their ever-multiplying copies. Through my practice, I articulate a dialogue between this reality and a mythic past. I take inspiration from historic Indian art styles, from the dynamic Ajanta frescoes to the refined forms of the Mughal and Pahari miniature schools. Tempera, my process of choice, has helped me come closer to the ethereal quality that I identify the past artistic traditions with. As I explore motifs and stylistic peculiarities from these visual naratives, I build on that elusive quality that is instinctively identified as Indian. How is it relevant today? How do these pictoral traditions exchange with the contemporary? These are the questions that I continue to explore in my practice.
