Chandana Hore’s watercolour

It is not every day that we see graphics by Vinode Behari Mukherjee and Ramkinkar Beij at an exhibition. One can do this and a lot more at the ongoing exhibition, Synchrome, at Akar Prakar, where the works of more than 70 artists are being displayed. Many of the works are by much-sought-after veterans. There are an equal number of works by upcoming artists as well.

But this is not to say that the artists are well represented. These are just samplers, and one cannot form any idea about the works of the lesser-known artists on show.

To begin with, the younger artists. Samir Roy is known for his startling black-and-white drawings. His bird with udders verges on the caricature but it is also a wicked harpy in Campari red.

Jaya Ganguly’s large painting of the midnight hag is equally fearsome. Her humour is more underplayed.

Chandana Hore’s watercolour looks refreshing, with its bright yellow, carmine and viridian. Sohan Quadri’s work with ink and dye on paper makes waves on a ground of brilliant red.

Mithu Sen’s drawing appears to be a tangle of intertwined serpents. It is actually more penile in nature, as the tufts of woolly hair indicate. Mini Sivkumar, an autodidact, injects humour into her portrayal of a woman elaborately bedecked with flowers. Paula Sengupta’s print reminds one of fairytale illustrations — albeit with a twist.

Akhilesh paints his canvas with various shades and tones of yellow, creating a feeling of serenity not present in many of his works. Partha Shaw’s geometric shapes are too much like his father’s brilliant black-and-white calligraphic prints, the colours notwithstanding.

Jayashree Chakravarty’s tiny work stands out for its layered complexity.

Late Dharmanarayan Dasgupta’s satire takes an unusual form in the shape of a humongous couple dancing cheek to cheek. Swaminathan’s watercolour is small but indicative of the larger work with brilliant colours it may have led to.

Veena Bhargava uses fiery colours and threads in the same startling shades in her small work, where she uses architectural features indicative of the artist’s predilections. Aditya Basak’s largish work, with its faded gold and coffee colour, looks lovely, perhaps a bit too pretty. It lacks the strength of his earlier work.

N.S. Bendre’s painting of an aparajita trellis, too, looks very soothing, with its fading shades of blue and green. Gogi Saroj Pal’s She Vishnu lies amid a bed of waves like Aphrodite. It is a beautiful work in white and grey.

Paritosh Sen’s beauty with a veiled face is very unusual for an artist known for his digs at female vanity.

There are two wonderful works in black and white — Himmat Shah’s tiny work covered with jagged lines and Laxma Goud’s erotic picture of a furry beast suggestively sniffing at a nude.

Ganesh Pyne’s tiny portrait of an egghead, Max Beckman style, belongs to his early period, when he was in peak form.

The show features two small but wonderful pieces of sculpture. Sunil Das has become identified with his raging bull drawings. Here is a tiny head of the same creature that packs a lot of punch in it. Reba Hore’s terracotta head, too, makes a very strong impact in spite of its size, or the lack of it.

This is a truly mixed bag. One wishes the exhibition had more of a sense of direction, however high the quality of some of the individual exhibits may be.