This week we welcome Punnag (aka Tej) Hazarika, the founder and publisher of Cool Grove Press, and an independent book publisher, painter and musician. A resident of NYC since 1969, he often visits the state of Assam in northeast India to be with his paternal family. These days, painting at his Brooklyn home takes up most of his time.
Hazarika re-creates his immigrant’s cosmology through his paintings, his guitar, and his voice. He was inspired to take up painting by his college mate and friend Raphael Leonardo Black, an Aruban from Brooklyn who would later find critical success as a Surrealist.
Hazarika imagines metaphysical landscapes that give form to a stranger-in-a-strange-land experience. Art history courses he took in college triggered a lifelong interest in painting.
His work was featured in Epicenter’s Heat of the Moment Exhibition at the Satellite Art Fair for Miami Art Week this past December.
Thank you team Epicenter-NYC for circulating relevant local news in context week after week!
Absolutely delighted and grateful to be a featured here, to be seen by your readers!
Continued best wishes, Mitra and Nitin, for creating and nurturing such a diverse, inclusive and people centered social hub. Long Live Epicenter!