Samita Basu presents, in her current exhibition, a gallery of highly colourful faces. To draw or paint a human face has been part of the classic discipline of art for countless ages.
The drypoint portraits of Albrecht Durer, for example, scorch our eyes and reach deep into the pysche. Samita's faces, in charcoal and conte , attempt this same searing power. At the same time, she dazzles us by the infinite variety of the structure of the face, the play of light and shade and the dramatic distinction of male versus female face. There is a realistic solidity about every face but there is also admireable subtlety of delineation, be it of a beard, a forehead, a nose, or a pair of eyes.Samita Basu has come a long way from her last exhibition in which she made her city debut. There is a remarkable consistency between the human figures seen in her earlier paintings and the mood that envelopes her faces as they emerge from the pages of her current collection.
