| Such determination is rare, but Maity is that rarity in the creative world, disciplined, spontaneous, fun-loving, and with the chame-leon's ability to re-invent himself and his work. |
| He's working, for example, on a huge canvas "" size is his new mantra "" measuring 16' x 7'. "I get a lot of pleasure out of doing large canvases," he says. |
| But before Maity started work on his oils on large canvases, he was better known "" celebrated even "" as perhaps one of the finest watercolourists in India. Or so Shobha Bhatia of Gallerie Ganesha, who considers him her protegee, claims. |
| "He is very, very talented," she says, "and extremely versatile." And even though his huge sizes means she has to shop around to find the right buyers for his works, Bhatia is determined that his "happy" art tends towards the decorative "because we in India lean towards it too", she says. "Analysing art for hidden meanings doesn't make that the best." |
| Others rubbish the suggestion. "Yes, he's talented," says another mentor and gallerist, "but in his case you can see how galleries exploit artists. He hasn't been allowed to grow, or improve beyond the realm of skill to the realm of the self." |
| This places some questions on his value as an artist. "Oh, his prices will rise," scoffs Bhatia. |
| But just how, it's difficult to say, since it is his watercolours that have had maximum impact among serious collectors, while Maity's paintings of women "like red chillies" in bright, flat colours in what many see as an almost Spanish, even Cubist, influence, now mark his works. |
| The 40-year-old-artist is indifferent, he says, to such arguments. "What's serious and what is not?" he questions. |
| He still does his watercolours, though Maity himself claims to be fascinated by his own oils. Will he experiment again? "Change," he says, "will come again." We're waiting. |
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