Suman Gupta

Mountains, magnificent and rich in resources, not only hold great fascination for the human mind but also serve as key centers of culture and recreation. While for some, mountains are the epitome of ethereal beauty and unsurpassed grandeur, to others they represent the ultimate challenge. As the expanse of the landscape widens, the artist's experience deepens and expresses itself in vivid images. These images provide some real landmarks for a...
Read More Mountains, magnificent and rich in resources, not only hold great fascination for the human mind but also serve as key centers of culture and recreation. While for some, mountains are the epitome of ethereal beauty and unsurpassed grandeur, to others they represent the ultimate challenge. As the expanse of the landscape widens, the artist's experience deepens and expresses itself in vivid images. These images provide some real landmarks for a journey from actual to visual and then transcend into an area of separate reality.

Couched in his cultural roots relating to the mountains, the works of Suman Gupta are imbued with multi-layered meanings, rich in anthropological details. Using his memory and imagination as a tool, Suman goes beyond the scientific objectively and transforms real life situations to become visual documents of socio-philosophical significances, what he calls "romanticizing the visual", while pursuing his mind-images.

Suman depicts people in everyday actions, objects, a tree here, a landscape there during his wanderings in the countryside, the hills and highlands of the place of his origin. The juxtaposition of different images achieves a dreamlike effect and the process of transformation is complete. By pairing of two or more disparate elements Suman achieves an ironic twist, a new signification that decontextualizes those presented. The transposition, like a jump cut, inculcates an introspective mood and by this, Suman succeeds in creating haunting images. He portrays marginalized rural communities of Dogras of the Shivaliks, toiling, labouring, caught in the flux of change, along with traditional artifacts symbolic of native cultural practices, ethnic subtleties set into man-made and natural surroundings. Rendered to minute details, the paintings, while allowing the onlooker to feel the local flavours, also raise existentialist issues. It is this effortless gliding from the physical-psychological to philosophical planes that marks Suman's works.

Realism is Suman's forte. The post-modern concern with concern with realism as a valid and vibrant approach to aesthetics is now established. The movements to abstraction reflected a moment in history where human and artistic concerns veered towards the blurring and decentring of the real. The temporary usurpation of the realistic vision by the new technology of photography also contributes to the move away from the truthful and technically valid depiction of the form. The works of Suman Gupta reassure one about the future of realism in the world of art.

Honours and Awards

1998 J&K State Award

1998 Bank of Punjab Award

1997 Awarded scholarship in Drawings by AIFACS

1994 'Award of Honour', presented by N.S.S. wing of Jammu University

1984 Sobha Singh Award from J&K Gandhi Samarak Nidhi

1980-86 Gold & Silver Medal in Zonal & National Festivals held at Hissar, Agra, Annamalai, Akola, Chandigarh, kanpur, Aligarh and Meerut

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PAST StoryLTD AUCTIONS

Showing 4 of 5 works

Lot 24 Details

Absolute Tuesdays 22 September 2020

Untitled

Acrylic on paper pasted on board

29 x 39.5 in

Winning bid
$508
Rs 36,825
(Inclusive of buyer's premium)

Lot 64 Details

No Reserve Auction of Modern and Contemporary Art 11-12 March 2020

Suman Gupta

Untitled

Acrylic on paper pasted on board

29 x 39.5 in

Winning bid
$796
Rs 57,675
(Inclusive of buyer's premium)

Lot 98 Details

No Reserve Auction of Modern and Contemporary Art 11-12 March 2020

Suman Gupta

Untitled

Acrylic on canvas

35 x 59 in

Winning bid
$1,626
Rs 1,17,915
(Inclusive of buyer's premium)

Lot 30 Details

No Reserve Auction of Modern and Contemporary Art 22-23 October 2019

Suman Gupta

Untitled

Acrylic on canvas

35.5 x 59.75 in

Winning bid
$999
Rs 69,960
(Inclusive of buyer's premium)

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Suman Gupta

Suman Gupta

Suman Gupta

Suman Gupta