PRADIP MAITRA is a talented artist from Kolkata. He selects unusual themes and enhances their appeal by making changes in them as per dictates of his imagination. Recently he did a series of paintings with steam engines – the good old steam engines. The new gives place to the old. New things happen. There is not much resemblance between the steam engines of the past and today’s trains.
The steam engine paintings the artist brought to Mumbai narrates the artist’s romantic encounters with steam engines and wagons. These are paintings in stations, those galloping away. The engine looked different in scorching sun and drenched in rain.
He takes a railway engine as a living entity. He watches the engine undergoing morning rituals and getting readied for long journey. And it returns after the day’s toil – tired and exhausted, the engine returns home. Surrounded by poor, hungry, shabilly dressed men, women and children, the artist went on sketching and painting the engine from various angles.
The artist can be contacted at C-122 Survey Park, Santoshpur, Kolkata-700075