Pronab Barua

JCAM: Where were you born and does that place still influence you? Where do you live now and how does that place influence you? Do you have family, friends, or fellow artists who support you in your work, life and art making?

PB: I was born at Jorhat, an important town of Assam, the easternmost state of India. Since I was born and brought up in Jorhat and am still continuing my life here it is obvious that the place has an impact on me.

The pace of life in a town is not quite as fast as in a city and as such my approach to life too is easy. Now of course times have changed and the neighborhood is no longer the same; the sprawling premises giving way to high rise commercial and dwelling complexes. Interaction among the neighbors has become reduced over the years.

My parents who have been long dead encouraged me in my interest in drawing and painting but not to the point of taking up art as a career. I can't blame them for in their times people down here could hardly imagine that art could be a source of livelihood. So I drew and painted in my spare time and a few of us artist friends even formed a society in 1976. Our persistent efforts to make the society a viable unit paid off and now we have a building which houses an art gallery too.

JCAM: When and how did you start making art? Why do you make art now? What are you trying to communicate with your art? How has your work changed or developed over time?

PB: I started drawing very young; in fact before I could read or write. In our childhood, we had to write on slate boards framed in wood. Once you drew or wrote something you had to wipe it off to be able to draw or write again. I was four or five when I started out thus. I make art now first to please myself. It is a medium of expression for me.

I try to respond to things, situations, nature that stirs my emotions most through my art.

It is difficult to say how my work has changed or developed over time. But people who have been seeing my work since my younger days say my work has developed, probably subject matter-wise and technique-wise.

JCAM: Do you have any creative patterns, routines or rituals associated with your art making? What is your most important artist tool(s) and why? How do you know when a work is finished? What new creative medium would you love to pursue?

PB: Well in my case, it is kind of meditative. Sometimes an image will disturb my vision for sometime and I feel at ease when I can deliver it on paper or canvas. For example a particular tree had always attracted me. The tree, a big banyan, is still there spreading its many branches to form a canopy and on the side of the highway amid tea bushes. I had been wanting to paint it for long until one afternoon on a holiday I grabbed a board, paper, watercolors and brushes and boarded a bus to my destination. Within an hour I did a watercolor to my satisfaction; I saw my vision transported to the paper. There was another such instance. So it is an impulsive act on a long thought out subject!

For an artist, all his tools of the trade are important, depending on what and where he wants to paint or draw. Still I carry a sketch book while traveling for I might like to draw something that catches my fancy.

I know a work is finished when I am happy with the outcome.

So many new media to express yourself have come up in the art scene that until you have a good grasp over the techniques to apply them it is pointless to try and use them. Besides where we live you do not have access to these new media. Still I would love to have a go at digital and printmaking.

JCAM: What strategies could you share with other artists on how to become successful professionally? What interesting projects are you working on at the moment? What are your artistic goals for the future?

PB: As for sharing strategies with my fellow artists to make us successful, well I am afraid, I have none to offer. Like it or not one's success as an artist is measured by how much one is worth; I mean if one's work is sellable or not.

Here in the North East of India we don't have a buyer's base. We have two or three private art galleries in the whole region. Usually corporate houses are the ones who patronize art and we don't have such corporate houses here. Strategies to lure them to the region may be worked out so that they may invest in art. The North East is an economically backward region and as such there are no funds for art.

A Baroda based gallery, in a bid to give exposure to work of practicing artists of Assam, has organized an exhibition in October. They have selected my work too and I am sending two of my recent paintings: Cosmic Quilt and Solar Blanket. I am seventy and I have a few works disturbing my vision at the moment. I am hopeful of executing them in as near future as possible.

JCAM: What or who inspires you? Do you have a favorite – or influential – living artist? What work of art do you wish you owned and why?

PB: Nature has always been inspiring me. Nature has never ceased to excite me. I have many favorite artists — both international and Indian. But none of them has been an influence on me. I paint my inner visions out. It is like exorcising the idea out and I find the form in the process that best expresses it.

I would not mind owning one or two of Matisse's work. Henri Matisse is my most favorite followed by Howard Hodgkin, Paul Klee and Mark Rothko.

If given a chance, I would love to own late Indian artist Ganesh Pyne's Harbour, the print of which I saw many years ago in a magazine. In this work, the artist who mostly painted in tempera created a dreamlike atmosphere with anchored ships in a quiet harbor whose stillness is almost palpable.

JCAM: What does being creative mean to you? What is the best advice you ever had about how to be more creative?

PB: Being creative means being able to teach people how to look at everyday things differently.

People would be more creative if they try to be not in the rat race and try ways to be one with nature and thus find peace of mind. This definitely will transport them to newer realms where they can possibly have subjects of their interest.

JCAM: Has the COVID pandemic changed the way you make your art?

PB: The pandemic definitely has impacted people's lives in more ways than one. Although life came to a standstill during the pandemic, strangely enough artistic practices flourished as did appreciation for the visual arts. Confinement gave a newer meaning to art. Looking back I find that the work I did during the period tended to become more poetic.

The pandemic definitely impacted the way I looked at my surroundings. I found myself more and more attracted to nature and some of the nature related ideas I had planned I would paint someday appeared on my canvas. I think it is a positive change in my art practice.

Even so, for me my art has been like a quiet river flowing in the same direction. There has been no other such event in my life that affected the way I create my art.

Contact Information:

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