Artist

Sagnik Samanta

Sagnik Samanta (b. 1994) woodcuts and digital artworks hark back to the power
and use of the printmaking medium in earlier decades. As the chosen medium of a movement to disseminate information to the masses, Fritz Eichenberg described the printmaking medium, “[It has] worked for peace or for war, for God or for Devil. Tyrants and political bosses have feared its power.”

An expression of his political views on the CAA and the farmer’s protest are seen in Samanta’s woodcuts and digital work series, Farmland. Here he shows the protesters from the human standpoint, their sense of solidarity to the cause is expressed in their living and working together collectively. Women, old and young, join the protest, as do ancient farmers and little children. Simple chores like cooking and discussing issues becomes the glue that binds them together as a community, a humanitarian brotherhood that is invincible.

The inability to visit his studio where his printmaking equipment lay locked up, nor
the possibility of interacting with his artistic community during the COVID pandemic, became an opportunity for Samanta to begin a photoseries entitled Apothanasia (the prolongation of life). Capturing abandoned streets, cityscapes and the lives of those close to him who were forced to adapt to a slower pace of existence and maintain social distancing led to a collective sense of discomfort and anxiety.

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