Water colour most difficult medium of art: Paresh Maity

Celebrated painter and sculptor, Paresh Maity believes water colours is one of the most difficult and rare forms of expression in art, since there is not much scope for "rectification".
The artist whose first tryst with the medium was as a boy of eight in his native village of Tamluk in West Bengal, has chronicled his artistic career spanning over 41 years as a painter in an ongoing exhibition here.
"I started painting with water colours when I was 8 years old on papers in school notebooks using water colours, since it was the easiest and the cheapest medium available.

"But later on I discovered that it is the most difficult medium to express, since there is no scope of rectification... it's simply like, either you succeed or fail," says Maity.
Titled, "World of Watercolours", the exhibition curated by Art Alive gallery is a retrospective on Maity's incomparable command on watercolours and features a collection of artworks painted between 1976 and 2017.
"Once you paint with water colours, you realise there are several limitations like that of the size of the paper you use. Most importantly you can not use white pigments... It's just unpainted white surface of a paper which serves as a source of light.

"That is the reason it is becoming a rare medium of art because it requires a lot of practise and devotion to achieve perfection," he says.

The artworks in vibrant colours are reminiscent of his childhood days. One of the paintings made in 1976 portrays a ferry beside lake Roopnarayan in his village.
"It was the ferry which people used to cross the lake back in my village," he says.
Maity began his rendezvous with art by making clay toys, and gradually shifted to water colours and other mediums to expand the expression of his artistic capabilities.
The artist gets nostalgic while remembering his "challenging" journey and the hard work he had to put in becoming the painter he is.

"Since I belonged to a middle class family I did not have much money to pursue my passion. My first interaction with art while seeing the artisans making idols for Durga puja in West Bengal.
With over 79 solo exhibitions to his credit, the artist
has been a recipient of the Padma Shri, the fourth-highest civilian award.
He has painted the longest painting in India, that stretches on for over 850 feet and is considered one of the monumental paintings in the world.
Most of the paintings at the exhibition depict the atmospheric beauty, landscapes, scenes, time and places from his journey across India and to countries like China, Japan and London.

The artist who has been inspired by English painters Joseph Mallord William Turner and John Constable, also released a coffee table book of his paintings which he conceptualised over the past eight years.
"This is the most comprehensive, water colour coffee table book. Since the past few years, I realised that there is not much work available in this genre, so I felt the need to come up with the book," he says.
The exhibition also has on display a 50ft x 30ft installation focusing on the importance of water in life and the need to conserve it for the future.

"My journey as an artist has come a full circle with this exhibition. It is really important to create a language of your own while making an installation rather than representing a derivative from anywhere else," says Maity.
The artist who believes that art has no language says, "Art matters to me as much as my life and I want to create a high standard for arts with aesthetics while spreading love and happiness among people."
The exhibition which is underway at Lalit Kala Akademi here is set to continue till February 17.