It’s not often that one comes across shows that celebrate art in everyday objects. Steelscapes, the recently-concluded four-man display of artworks integrating steel at Steel Junction, offered this and some more.

Steel is not a common, or even preferred medium, for artists. Thus, it was interesting to witness the creative avenues that the medium opened up for the four artists.

While Chakraborty utilises the sheen and gloss of steel to bring in dramatic breaks in his primarily acrylic-on-canvas works, Das Buro’s work is shorn of the characteristic lustre, focussing on a burnt matte effect. Both work as experiments in form ? especially Spoons and the Composition triad by Chakraborty and Das Buro’s Facing the Light. However, the effort to incorporate the central medium in Butterfly on Knife seemed forced, the drama of contrasting shapes and the break in perspective laboured.

Sujoy Sen keeps it simple, with interesting copy punctuating close-ups on Photoshop-worked images of worktable details. Forms, again, are celebrated in Pen, Safety Pin and Needle. Gopal Roy’s works span a wider milieu, taking in everything from the Howrah bridge to a trendy hip flask, hinting at the omnipresence of steel in urban life. Roy’s eye for detail and a canny sense of perspective is evident in works like Candle and Steel Cone, his lens creating art out of shapes that are usually overlooked.